A study led by Agrotecnio, the University of Lleida, and the CTFC confirms that mushroom production and spore dispersal in black pine forests depend more on climate and topography than on forest management.
A scientific team from Agrotecnio – University of Lleida and the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) delves into the reproductive behavior of wild fungi in a recent study that shows that environmental factors such as rainfall, temperature, or altitude play a much more decisive role in the diversity and composition of fungal communities than forest management techniques such as selective logging or thinning.
The study was carried out in the Meranges area (Girona), in a subalpine black pine forest. During the autumn of 2021, 18 plots—both with and without forest thinning—were monitored, with both carpophores and spores collected weekly. This dual approach allowed the researchers to analyze fungal communities from the perspective of mushroom production and their reproductive capacity through spores.
In these forests of Meranges, numerous edible fungi that fruit abundantly have been found, such as Tricholoma portentosum, a species common at higher elevations, and other highly prized culinary species like Boletus edulis, Lactarius deliciosus, Cantharellus cibarius y Macrolepiota procera.
The results of the study show that weather conditions explain up to 15% of the variability in the spore composition of ectomycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi, while the influence of climate on carpophores is much lower (2.6% and 0.6%, respectively). Topography, especially altitude and slope, also has a notable impact on saprotrophic species, but virtually none on ectomycorrhizal ones.
According to Agrotecnio – UdL researcher Giada Centenaro, one of the authors of the study, “the intensity of forest thinning had no significant effect on either spore diversity or fungal diversity, at least in the short term, and contrary to our initial expectations. This suggests that forest management policies should take local environmental factors more into account in order to promote fungal biodiversity,” she adds.
Researcher Ángel Ponce, from the CTFC, explains that “one of the most notable findings is the temporal correlation between carpophore production and spore dispersal, with a one-week lag in ectomycorrhizal species. This indicates that fungi release their spores shortly after appearing, which opens the door to using spore traps as a complementary tool to study fungal dynamics without the need for constant visual sampling.”
The research has been led by Giada Centenaro and Ángel Ponce, with the support of Josu G. Alday, José Antonio Bonet, Sergio de-Miguel, Juan Martínez de Aragón, and Svetlana Dashevskaya, researchers from Agrotecnio, the CTFC, and the University of Lleida.
This study has been developed within the framework of the MicroEco and FUNFORCHANGE projects, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain, the State Research Agency, and the European Union.
Last modified: 5 June 2025
