Macrofungi associated with vegetation and soils at Ha Ha Tonka State Park, Missouri

Abstract

Fungi and vascular plant interactions are necessary components of natural community establishment, productivity and degradation. While many fungal species serve as decomposers of organic matter, others have evolved mutualistic or parasitic relationships with vascular plants. This research focused on characterizing associations among macrofungi, vascular plant communities and soils. Ha Ha Tonka State Park is in central Missouri and has a varying landscape with numerous natural community types that provide diverse habitats and microhabitats that are ideally suited to the investigation of fungal, floral and soil associations. Five communities sampled within the park included glades, open woodlands, flatwoods, closed-canopy forests and karst sinks. Permanent 0.01 ha. plots were surveyed in the 2006 and 2007 growing seasons. Surveys of plots and entire communities yielded 249 fungal taxa and approximately 265 floral taxa. Soils were analyzed to help define specific edaphic components of each community and used to associate soil attributes with plant and fungal communities. Forest communities contained the most ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi species. Karst sinks and glades had higher soil pH and phosphorus and fewer ectomycorrhizal fungi. Statistical analyses included non-metric multidimensional scaling, multiresponse permutation procedure and indicator species analysis. Indicator species were identified for flatwood, forest and karst communities, but results were inconclusive for glades and open woodlands.

• ectomycorrhizal
• flatwoods
• fungal communities
• glades
• karst

Special thanks and debt of gratitude are owed to those individuals who gave invaluable help and support in the designing and ensuring the completion of this project. This project was conducted as a master’s thesis submitted to the University of Central Missouri (UCM) by Christopher D. Crabtree. We thank UCM and many of the faculty, staff and students, including Dr Jay Raveill, Glenda Carmack, Aaron Bossert, and fellow graduate students. We also thank Ken McCarty for assisting as an outside graduate committee member, Mike Currier, John Logan, the staff of Ha Ha Tonka State Park and the Missouri DNR for advice and innumerable resources. In addition we thank the Missouri Mycological Society (MOMS), Scott Bates, Dr Jack Rodgers of the University of Washington, Dr Walter Sundberg and Jay Justice. This project was financially supported by the Missouri DNR Award No. 226001-02 and the National Science Foundation-Division of Environmental Biology-Biodiversity Surveys and Inventories Program Award No. 0343447.