Wood-decay type and fungal guild dominance across a North American log transplant experiment

We incubated 196 large-diameter aspen (Populus tremuloides), birch (Betula papyrifera), and pine (Pinus taeda) logs on the FACE Wood Decomposition Experiment encompassing eight climatically-distinct forest sites in United States. sampled dead wood from these after 2 to 6 y of decomposition determined rot type as a continuous variable using lignin loss/density loss ratio (L/D) assessed wood-rotting fungal guilds high-throughput amplicon sequencing (HTAS) ITS-2 marker. found L/D values line with white dominance all three tree species, having lower than birch. Based HTAS data, fungi were most abundant diverse guild, soft more brown low values. For logs, decay was related density at sampling. associated balance between brown/soft abundance OTU richness. Our results demonstrate that is governed by biotic abiotic factors, which vary species.