Abstract:
Crater Lake National Park presents an excellent opportunity for ecological research due to its relatively pristine landscape, the protection of its natural features, its infrastructure, and a Park administration supportive of scientific inquiry and restoration ecology. The research presented here examines the responses of fungi to various forms of perturbation. In the first chapter, we studied fruiting responses of mycorrhizal fungi to different prescribed applications in a ponderosa pine – white fir ecotype. We found that the most influential factor in fungal fruiting patterns was the soil C:N ratio, and identified corresponding "guilds" of fungal indicator species. Although more intense prescribed burns affected soil attributes, including C:N ratios, the fire served only as a modifier on an underlying landscape pattern of soil attributes. In the second chapter we examined the effects of past and current anthropogenic disturbance on mycorrhizal fungal fruiting patterns in a mountain hemlock – noble fir ecotype. At the microsite scale, intensive use had a detrimental effect on fungal diversity and productivity, but at the scale of the research plots there was no significant effect of anthropogenic disturbance on fungal fruiting patterns. In the third chapter, we studied the effects of the abovementioned disturbance types plus the effects of wildfires on mat-forming soil fungi. We identified 38 taxa of mat-forming fungi, and found that the presence of fungal mats is largely correlated with needle litter. Several of these taxa were not previously known to form mats.
