Fungi contribute extensively to a wide range of ecosystem processes, including decomposition of organic carbon, deposition of recalcitrant carbon, and transformations of nitrogen and phosphorus. In this review, we discuss the current knowledge about physiological and morphological traits of fungi that directly influence these processes, and we describe the functional genes that encode these tra...

Abstract Purpose Large parts of the Amazon rainforest grow on weathered soils depleted in phosphorus and rock-derived cations. We tested hypothesis that this ecosystem, fine roots stimulate decomposition nutrient release from leaf litter biochemically by releasing enzymes, exuding labile carbon stimulating microbial decomposers. Methods monitored a Central tropical rainforest, where were either...

Organic matter decomposition in the globally widespread coniferous forests has an important role in the carbon cycle, and cellulose decomposition is especially important in this respect because cellulose is the most abundant polysaccharide in plant litter. Cellulose decomposition was 10 times faster in the fungi-dominated litter of Picea abies forest than in the bacteria-dominated soil. In the ...