Macrofungal species distributions depend on habitat partitioning of topography, light, and vegetation in a temperate mountain forest

The habitat partitioning hypothesis provides a conceptual framework for explaining the maintenance of plant and animal diversity. Its central tenet assumes environmental conditions are spatially structured, and that this structure is reflected in species distributions through associations with different habitats. Studies confirming habitat partitioning effects have focused primarily on spatial distributions of plants and animals, with habitat partitioning hypothesis under explored for macrofungi. Here, we examined the sporocarps of macrofungi in a 5-ha forest dynamics plot in China. We used four different methods to define microhabitats for habitat partitioning analyses based on topography, understory light availability, plant community, or a combination of these factors, and analyzed the effect of microhabitat partitioning on epigeous macrofungal community. Our results showed that the characteristics of the macrofungal assemblages varied among the habitats. A total of 85 species examined were associated with one or more of the habitat types (85/125, 68%). The factors related to the sporocarp composition differed among the various microhabitats. Our findings suggest that different microhabitats favor occurrence of different macrofungal species, and sporocarps -environment relation varied among the different microhabitats at this temperate mountain forest locality. These findings shed new light to the biodiversity conservation in macrofungi in temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest and point to the potential importance of microhabitat partitioning for sporocarp formation.