Climate change effects on the fungal ecosystem component (ClimFun)

The ClimFun project, funded by the Research Council of Norway, will increase our understanding about how fungi respond to global change.

Research focus

Although often overlooked, fungi are key players in terrestrial ecosystems. For example, their activity is important for the natural carbon cycle through decay and in situ binding of carbon. More information on how fungi are affected by climate change is highly relevant for a knowledge-based management of terrestrial ecosystems under a climate change scenario. The project ClimFun specifically addresses the effects of climate change on the phenology (temporal fruiting patterns), production (yields of fruit bodies), distribution of fungal species and their substrate usage. The project will make use of existing data in the form of dated fungal field records from at least seven European countries.These data will, through advanced bio-statistical analyses, be coupled to climatic measurements, tree-ring chronologies, experimental data, as well as existing knowledge about the ecology of the focal taxa. Through this unique data synthesis from various sources, we will be able to address both basic and novel research questions at various spatiotemporal scales.

 

The research network

The ClimFun project is run in collaboration with numerous researchers that work at the interface of climate change, climatology and fungal ecology, including biologists, climatologists, ecologists, and statisticians from Austria, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK and USA. Please see list on the right for researcers currently involved in the ClimFun Project.

We also collaborate with other researchers on more specific topics.

A selection of papers published by the research network in recent years

  • Boddy L, Büntgen U, Egli S, Gange AC, Heegaard E, Kirk PM, Mohammad A, Kauserud H. 2014. Climate variation effects on fungal fruiting. Fungal Ecology, online available.
  • Büntgen U, Peter M, Kauserud H, Egli S. 2013. Unraveling environmental drivers of a recent increase in Swiss fungi fruiting. Global Change Biology.
  • Kauserud H, Heegaard E, Büntgen U, Halvorsen R, Egli S, Senn-Irletc B, Krisai-Greilhuberf I, Dämonf W, Nordén J, Høiland K, Kirk PM, Semenov M, Stenseth NC, Boddy L. 2013. Reply to Gange et al.: Climate-driven changes in the fungal fruiting season in the United Kingdom. PNAS (letter), early online.
  • Büntgen U, Egli S, Camarero JJ, Fischer EM, Stobbe U, Kauserud H, Tegel W, Sproll L, Stenseth NC. 2012. Drought-induced decline in Mediterranean truffle harvest. Nature Climate Change. 27, 827-829.
  • Kauserud H, Heegaard E, Büntgen U, Halvorsen R, Egli S, Senn-Irletc B, Greilhuber I, Dämon W, Sparks T, Nordén J, Høiland K, Kirk P, Semenov M, Boddy L, Stenseth NC. 2012. Warming-induced shift in European mushroom fruiting phenology. PNAS, 109,14488-14493. pdf  Press release. Media coverage (in Norwegian): forskning.no
  • Büntgen U, Kauserud H, Egli S. 2011. Linking climate variability to mushroom productivity and phenology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, online available. pdf
  • Kauserud H, Heegaard E, Halvorsen R, Boddy L, Høiland K, Stenseth NC. 2011. Mushroom’s spore size and time of fruiting are strongly related – is moisture important? Biology Letters, 7, 273-276.
  • Kauserud H, Heegaard E, Semenov MA, Boddy L, Halvorsen R, Stige LC, Sparks TH, Gange AC, Stenseth NC. 2010. Climate change and spring-fruiting fungi. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B. 277, 1169-1177.
  • Wollan AK, Bakkestuen V, Kauserud H, Gulden G, Halvorsen R. 2008. Modelling and predicting fungal distribution patterns using herbarium data. Journal of Biogeography, 35, 2298–2310.
  • Kauserud H, Stige LC, Vik JO, Økland RH, Høiland K, Stenseth NC. 2008. Mushroom fruiting and climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 105, 3811-3814.
Tags: USA
Published Aug. 25, 2014 1:36 PM - Last modified Nov. 1, 2021 2:51 PM

Contact

Håvard Kauserud

haavarka@ibv.uio.no

Participants

Detailed list of participants