Fungi associated with decomposing deadwood in a natural beech-dominated forest

Deadwood represents a specific habitat of particular importance in natural, unmanaged forests where wood is not harvested. Here, we characterized the basic wood chemistry, enzyme activity, fungal biomass content and community composition of Fagus sylvatica, Abies alba and Picea abies coarse woody debris decomposing for <5, 5-15, 16-38 and >38 years in a natural temperate forest. The results indicate that coarse deadwood represents a highly diverse substratum in terms of the quality, fungal biomass content and, in particular, the composition of fungal communities whose properties change with time. Because sequences recovered from individual logs were typically dominated by one or few fungal species, which were rarely tree species-specific, the community assembly appeared to show a high level of stochasticity. Among the estimated variables, nitrogen content that increased with decay length was the most important candidate driver of fungal biomass content, community composition and enzyme activity. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and British Mycological Society. All rights reserved.