paddy straw is one of the most abundant agricultural by-products in tamil nadu, india. itcontains high amounts of cellulose and lignin. the fungal strains were isolated from naturally decomposingsites of paddy straw. eight fungal strains were isolated and later these eight fungi were used for finding outtheir potential for the degradation of lignin and cellulose content of paddy straw. among ei...

Boreal forests are characterized by spatially heterogeneous soils with low N availability. The decomposition of coniferous litter in these systems is primarily performed by basidiomycete fungi, which often form large mycelia with a well-developed capacity to reallocate resources spatially- an advantageous trait in heterogeneous environments. In axenic microcosm systems we tested whether fungi i...

Investigations of microbial diversity in Antarctic are important to begin to understand ecosystem functioning and decomposition processes. This study documents fungi at 9 historic sites on the Antarctic Peninsula collected from wooden structures, other organic materials, and soils during a joint National Science Foundation and British Antarctic Survey expedition in 2007. Many of these sites had...

Ectomycorrhizal fungi play a key role in mobilizing nutrients embedded in recalcitrant organic matter complexes, thereby increasing nutrient accessibility to the host plant. Recent studies have shown that during the assimilation of nutrients, the ectomycorrhizal fungus Paxillus involutus decomposes organic matter using an oxidative mechanism involving Fenton chemistry (Fe(2+) + H2O2 + H(+) → Fe...

Progress in understanding changes in soil biology in response to latitude, elevation and disturbance gradients has generally lagged behind studies of above-ground plants and animals owing to methodological constraints and high diversity and complexity of interactions in below-ground food webs. New methods have opened research opportunities in below-ground systems, leading to a rapid increase in...

Both top-down (grazing) and bottom-up (resource availability) forces can determine the strength of priority effects, or the effects of species arrival history on the structure and function of ecological communities, but their combined influences remain unresolved. To test for such influences, we assembled experimental communities of wood-decomposing fungi using a factorial manipulation of fungi...

Mycorrhizal and saprotrophic (SAP) fungi are essential to terrestrial element cycling due to their uptake of mineral nutrients and decomposition of detritus. Linking these ecological roles to specific fungi is necessary to improve our understanding of global nutrient cycling, fungal ecophysiology, and forest ecology. Using discriminant analyses of nitrogen (delta(15)N) and carbon (delta(13)C) i...

Jordan R. Mayor,* Edward A. G. Schuur and Terry W. Henkel Department of Botany, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA Department of Biological Sciences, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA *Correspondence: E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract Mycorrhizal and saprotrophic (SAP) fungi are essential to terrestrial element cycling due to their uptake of mine...