Aim Although mycorrhizal traits have been widely studied at the species level, their distribution and ecological significance at the community level remain poorly understood. We investigated how community‐level arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) traits vary among grassland ecosystems differing in climatic conditions and land‐use regime. Location Europe and North America. Taxa Herbaceous vascular plants. Methods We analysed 104 grassl...

Aim Understanding why some plant species are abundant or widely distributed is a long‐standing aim of plant ecology. This research investigated whether the position of herbaceous plant species within the plant economics spectrum (aboveground and belowground) and along the mycorrhizal collaboration gradient could explain their local abundance, geographic occupancy, and global abundance. Location Global. Methods We used two publ...

Ecological niche volumes are hypothesised to decrease with latitude, with species distribution primarily shaped by abiotic factors at high latitudes and biotic factors at low latitudes. Similar patterns are expected along elevational gradients. We tested these predictions using global distribution and niche data for arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. We found that temperature niche volumes increased with latitude, while precip...

Ecosystem functions and services are severely threatened by unprecedented global loss in biodiversity. To counteract these trends, it is essential to develop systems to monitor changes in biodiversity for planning, evaluating, and implementing conservation and mitigation actions. However, the implementation of monitoring systems suffers from a trade‐off between grain (i.e., the level of detail), extent (i.e., the number of stu...

Studies of niche differentiation and biodiversity often focus on a few niche dimensions due to the methodological challenge of describing hyperdimensional niche space. However, this may limit our understanding of community assembly processes. We used the full spectrum of realized niche types to study arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities: distinguishing abiotic and biotic, and condition and resource, axes. Estimates of dif...

Mycorrhizal symbioses are known to strongly influence plant performance, structure plant communities and shape ecosystem dynamics. Plant mycorrhizal traits, such as those characterising mycorrhizal type (arbuscular (AM), ecto‐, ericoid or orchid mycorrhiza) and status (obligately (OM), facultatively (FM) or non‐mycorrhizal) offer valuable insight into plant belowground functionality. Here, we compile available plant mycorrhiza...

Aim The occurrence, relative richness and abundance of N‐fixing plants are the main features of the N‐fixing potential of vascular plant communities. We aimed to unveil how climate, biome type and land management regime affect the N‐fixing potential of vegetation. Since the world is witnessing an invincible transition of all those environmental factors during the last century, we examined the global growth trends of N‐fixers t...

Sustainable agriculture is essential to address global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Hedgerows enhance aboveground biodiversity and provide ecosystem services, but little is known about their impact on soil biota. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are one of the key components of belowground biodiversity. We compared the diversity and composition of AM fungal communities at four farmland sites locate...

Fungi are highly diverse organisms, which provide multiple ecosystem services. However, compared with charismatic animals and plants, the distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been little explored. Here, we examined endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high‐resolution, long‐read metabarcoding...

Classical theory identifies resource competition as the major structuring force of biotic communities and predicts that (i) levels of dominance and richness in communities are inversely related, (ii) narrow niches allow dense “packing” in niche space and thus promote diversity, and (iii) dominants are generalists with wide niches, such that locally abundant taxa also exhibit wide distributions. Current empirical support, howev...

Shortleaf pine site index on the Cumberland Plateau is one of the least studied silvics of the species. To obtain site index information, practitioners must use site index curves from outside the region. This research proposes a novel approach to using USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis data to develop a shortleaf pine site index equation specific to the Plateau. Shortleaf pine site trees (n = 410) were grown f...

Aim Organisms on our planet form spatially congruent and functionally distinct communities, which at large geographical scales are called “biomes”. Understanding their pattern and function is vital for sustainable use and protection of biodiversity. Current global terrestrial biome classifications are based primarily on climate characteristics and functional aspects of plant community assembly. These and other existing biome s...

Motivation Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co‐occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots...

Purpose Older employees are often thought to be vulnerable to negative effects of information and communication technology (ICT). Our study aims to examine associations between work-related ICT exposure (i.e. ICT use or digital work intensification), physical health, mental health and work ability (WA). We examine whether these associations are modified by socio-economic position (SEP). Methods We analysed cross-sectional data...

Plants involved in the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis trade photosynthetically derived carbon for fungal‐provided soil nutrients. However, little is known about how plant light demand and ambient light conditions influence root‐associating AM fungal communities. We conducted a manipulative field experiment to test whether plants’ shade‐tolerance influences their root AM fungal communities in open and shaded grassland si...