Fire is a dominant ecosystem process in many Mediterranean climate type ecosystems, and is predicted to increase in severity and frequency, shifting away from previous regimes in many regions. Responses of flora and fauna to fire are relatively well studied, but less is known about the responses of belowground microbiota. We quantified soil fungal dynamics over the first 12–15 months after fire, focusing on attributes of the fire regime (season, interval, severity). Soil samples were collected from three sites in a threatened woodland ecosystem in southwestern Australia, a Mediterranean-type climate region. Fungal taxa were identified via high throughput sequencing of the ITS subregion and taxonomy assigned using reference databases. Richness, diversity, abundance, community composition, and functional groups were quantified. Over the post-fire sampling period, richness and diversity declined and soil fungal community composition changed significantly throughout the sampling period, with family level taxa and functional groupings experiencing the most change. Through the sampling period, an increase in saprotrophic and endophytic fungi was observed, along with a decrease in all pathogenic fungi. We found that the post-fire fungal community is quite dynamic in the first 12–15 months after fire. We found little effect of fire interval or fire season, though our inference was limited. Our work contributes to putting belowground biota into the same conceptual frameworks as aboveground taxa and serves to inform fire managers in fire-prone Mediterranean climate type regions.

中文翻译：

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地中海气候型班克西亚林地火灾后的短期土壤真菌群落动态


火灾是许多地中海气候型生态系统中的主要生态系统过程，预计火灾的严重程度和频率将增加，与许多地区以前的状况不同。动植物对火的反应研究相对较好，但对地下微生物群的反应知之甚少。我们量化了火灾后前 12-15 个月的土壤真菌动态，重点关注火情的属性（季节、间隔、严重程度）。土壤样本是从澳大利亚西南部受威胁的林地生态系统中的三个地点收集的，这是一个地中海型气候区。通过对 ITS 亚区进行高通量测序并使用参考数据库分配的分类法鉴定真菌类群。对丰富度、多样性、丰度、群落组成和功能组进行了量化。在火灾后的采样期内，丰富度和多样性下降，土壤真菌群落组成在整个采样期间发生显著变化，其中科级分类群和功能分组的变化最大。在整个采样期间，观察到腐生真菌和内生真菌的增加，以及所有病原真菌的减少。我们发现，火灾后的真菌群落在火灾后的前 12-15 个月内非常活跃。我们发现火灾间隔或火灾季节的影响很小，尽管我们的推断是有限的。我们的工作有助于将地下生物群落置于与地上分类群相同的概念框架中，并有助于为火灾多发的地中海气候类型地区的火灾管理人员提供信息。