The effect of forest management intensity, tree species and fungal-bacterial diversity on resource use, decomposition and gas emissions in dead Wood FunWood IV

• Applicants: Dr. Nico Jehmlich; Professor Dr. Matthias Noll
• Subject Area: Microbial Ecology and Applied Microbiology
• Term: from 2009 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 107519832

Wood-decomposition in forest ecosystems is a very important process with immense ecological consequences. Dead wood is an important structural component of forest ecosystems and it influences a large number of ecosystem functions of which the most relevant are C sequestration, nutrient cycling, and habitat provision for wood-dwelling organisms. The hereby proposed FunWood IV project will focus on ecosystem functions in dead wood decomposition and corresponding biodiversity. It aims to test experimentally whether increasing species richness will result in higher functional diversity in dead wood decomposer communities, and how the decomposer diversity and ecosystem processes are influenced by forest management intensity. FunWood IV will combine a range of state-of-the-art techniques (amplicon gene sequencing, metaproteomics, protein-SIP, CO2 emission rate and C/N content analyses) to provide an improved understanding on how decomposer communities execute wood degradation processes under fluctuating temperatures. In addition, we provide the opportunity to correlate between ecosystem processes such as wood decay and microbial diversity over tree species and along a gradient of forest management intensity on various geographic scales.The project FunWood IV targets three major objectives within the BeLong Dead (Biodiversity Exploratories Long term Dead Wood) consortium of DFG Priority Programme 1374: (i) to investigate the functional diversity in dead wood decomposer communities, (ii) to assess the functional and structural response of the wood-decomposing community to temperature fluctuations and (iii) to analyse the effect of forest management intensity and tree species on biodiversity accomplished with decomposition rates in dead wood.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1374: Biodiversity Exploratories