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Concerns about potential negative impacts of human activity on macrofungal diversity are spreading globally, yet research on this topic remains scarce. This study focuses on forest grazing (silvopasture), a popular economic practice whose impacts on macrofungal diversity are underexplored. Through investigation and comparison of macrofungal diversity and selected environmental factors in three types of subtropical forests (secondary mixed forests, dense-tree plantations and sparse-tree plantations) before and after two years of grazing at an intensity of 10 goats per hectare in South China, three key findings emerged: (1) Macrofungal alpha-diversity increased significantly after grazing, associated with an increase in large plant remains and a decrease in litterfall thickness; (2) dominance was monopolized by few taxa before grazing but became more balanced among a number of taxa after grazing; and (3) dominance of endemic taxa decreased in two of the three types of forests after grazing. Such findings suggest that grazing may create additional niches through foraging, trampling and excretion by livestock and thus recruit diverse macrofungi but may also lead to homogenization of fungal florae across regions and thus result in recessive beta-diversity loss. As this study heavily relies on taxonomy, allied updates for ambiguous taxa recognized in analyses are additionally proposed.
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; Xiong Xunan 1 ; Luo Zejia 1 ; Huang Yanqun 1 ; Huang, Rong 1 ; Chen, Huajie 1 ; Lin, Jia Y 2
; Yang, Zhu L 3
; Guang-Mei, Li 3
; Jia Xiaorong 1
1 College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China; [email protected] (K.L.Y.);
2 College of Plant Protection, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China; [email protected]
3 Yunnan Key Laboratory for Fungal Diversity and Green Development, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China; [email protected] (Z.L.Y.);