Ectomycorrhiza succession patterns in Pinus sylvestris forests after stand-replacing fire in the Central Alps

Fires shape fundamental properties of many forest ecosystems and climate change will increase their relevance in regions where fires occur infrequently today. In ecosystems that are not adapted to fire, post-fire tree recruitment is often sparse, a fact that might be attributed to a transient lack of mycorrhizae. Ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi play an important role for recruitment by enhancing nutrient and water uptake of their hosts. The questions arise whether and for how long the EcM community is transformed by fire. We investigated the resistance and resilience of EcM fungal communities on a chronosequence of 12 Pinus sylvestris stands in Valais (Switzerland) and Val d'Aosta (Italy) affected by fire between 1990 and 2006. Soil samples from burnt and non-burnt forests were analyzed with respect to EcM fungi by means of a bioassay. The number of EcM species was significantly lower in samples from recently (2-5 years) burnt sites than non-burnt forest, and increased with time since fire reaching levels of adjacent forests after 15-18 years. Community composition changed after fire but did not converge to that of non-burnt sites over the 18 year period. Only Rhizopogon roseolus and Cenococcum geophilum were abundant in both burnt sites and adjacent forest. Our data indicate fire resistance of some EcM fungal species as well as rapid resilience in terms of species number, but not in species composition. As long as the function of different EcM species for seedling establishment is unknown, the consequences of long-term shifts in EcM community composition for tree recruitment remain unclear.