How the multiple facets of soil fungal diversity vary worldwide remains virtually unknown, hindering the management of this essential species-rich group. By sequencing high-resolution DNA markers in over 4000 topsoil samples from natural and human-altered ecosystems across all continents, we illustrate the distributions and drivers of different levels of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of fungi and their ecological groups. We show the impact of precipitation and temperature interactions on local fungal species richness (alpha diversity) across different climates. Our findings reveal how temperature drives fungal compositional turnover (beta diversity) and phylogenetic diversity, linking them with regional species richness (gamma diversity). We integrate fungi into the principles of global biodiversity distribution and present detailed maps for biodiversity conservation and modeling of global ecological processes.

The response to copper pollution was studied in the vegetative progeny of tufted hair grass ( Deschampsia caespitosa (L.) Beauv.) and ragged robin ( Lychnis flos-cuculiL.) plants growing together in...

The vertical partitioning of fungi in forest soils regulates nutrient cycling. Chemical stress inhibits the organic matter turnover, and the role of fungal niche partitioning in this phenomenon needs exploration. Using next-generation sequencing, we studied fungal communities in organic and mineral soil horizons in control (unpolluted) and industrially polluted spruce-fir forests. Community composition and structure followed the pattern commonly observed in forest soils, with dominating ectomycorrhizal and saprotrophic mycelial fungi. In the control area, the ratio of ectomycorrhizal to saprotrophic fungal abundances was lower in the organic than in the mineral horizon. The strongest pollution-induced decrease of relative abundance and diversity was registered for saprotrophs, which are more exposed to heavy metals, and for those biotrophs, which lose most of their potential hosts. Therefore, the ratio of ectomycorrhizal to saprotrophic fungal abundances increased in the organic horizon in the polluted area, indicating a vertical repartition of fungal trophic guilds.