Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Altensteinstr. 6, Berlin, 14195, Germany.
Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Altensteinstr.34, Berlin, 14195, Germany.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2024 Dec;99(6):2211-2233. doi: 10.1111/brv.13119. Epub 2024 Jul 29.
Established ecological theory has focused on unitary organisms, and thus its concepts have matured into a form that often hinders rather than facilitates the ecological study of modular organisms. Here, we use the example of filamentous fungi to develop concepts that enable integration of non-unitary (modular) organisms into the established community ecology theory, with particular focus on its spatial aspects. In doing so, we provide a link between fungal community ecology and modern coexistence theory (MCT). We first show how community processes and predictions made by MCT can be used to define meaningful scales in fungal ecology. This leads to the novel concept of the unit of community interactions (UCI), a promising conceptual tool for applying MCT to communities of modular organisms with indeterminate clonal growth and hierarchical individuality. We outline plausible coexistence mechanisms structuring fungal communities, and show at what spatial scales and in what habitats they are most likely to act. We end by describing challenges and opportunities for empirical and theoretical research in fungal competitive coexistence.
既定的生态学理论主要关注单一生物体，因此其概念已经成熟到常常阻碍而非促进对模块化生物体的生态研究的程度。在这里，我们以丝状真菌为例，提出一些概念，使非单一（模块化）生物体能够融入既定的群落生态学理论，特别关注其空间方面。这样，我们就在真菌群落生态学和现代共存理论（MCT）之间建立了联系。我们首先展示了如何使用 MCT 的群落过程和预测来定义真菌生态学中的有意义的尺度。这导致了群落相互作用的单位（UCI）这一新颖概念的产生，这是一个很有前途的概念工具，可用于将 MCT 应用于具有不定克隆生长和层次个体性的模块化生物体群落。我们概述了可能的共存机制，这些机制构成了真菌群落，并展示了它们在哪些空间尺度和生境中最有可能起作用。最后，我们描述了真菌竞争共存的实证和理论研究的挑战和机遇。
