DIVERSITY OF FUNGI AND POTENTIAL FUNCTION IN NATURALLY REGENERATING CUT-OVER PEATLANDS

摘要

In some countries, centuries of peatland drainage and peat extraction for fuel and other uses have seen destruction of over 90% of their original peatland areas. Naturally restoring peatlands can, under optimal conditions, sustain re-colonisation by bog plant species after a short number of years. It has been hypothesised that the microbial community structure in restored peatlands is slower to respond than the vegetation. Paradoxically, although peatlands constitute one of the main global carbon sinks and fungi are generally regarded as globally the most important microbial contributors to carbon sequestration, the fungal communities of peat have only rarely been investigated. As part of the RECIPE initiative, we investigated the fungal diversity in both naturally restoring and intact peatlands in different European countries by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of a fragment of the internal transcribed spacer region of extracted DNA. Clear differences in the fungal communities of peat samples at different stages of decomposition could be observed. We show data attributing these differences to both inherent physico-chemical differences between the sites, and also the composition of the living vegetation or decaying plant material. We conclude that the composition of the fungal community is an important indicator of the regeneration status of cut-over peatlands.