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Biological Data

Orchids rely on mycorrhizal fungi to complete their life cycle. Recent research has shown that these fungi can be quite diverse and belong to different genera. Fungal communities are also likely to vary between populations. Little, however, is known about the factors determining variation in fungal communities and whether this variation affects the population dynamics of orchids. It can be expected that differences in soil conditions have a significant impact on mycorrhizal communities and therefore impact on the population dynamics of the orchids. To test this hypothesis fungal communities were determined in a large number of populations of the terrestrial orchid Epipactis neglecta (Fig. 1). For each population a series of soil characteristics was measured and the change in population size was assessed by comparing the population size in 2003 with that in 2013.

Fig. 1 Epipactis neglecta in its typical habitat.

The data have been summarized in two datasets, one that gives for each population the abundance (number of sequences) of all detected fungi (Epipactis_fungi.xlsx), and one that gives an overview of the soil characteristics (Epipactis_soil.xlsx). The soil characteristics that were measured are soil moisture content (moist), organic matter (OM), phosphate concentration (P), nitrate concentration (NO3) and ammonium concentration (NH4). The last file also tells you whether a population has increased (1) or decreased in size (0) between 2003 and 2013.  

1) Assess whether soil conditions vary among populations?  

Moist, pH, P, NH4 significantly influence the population

2) Investigate whether variation in fungal communities can be related to soil conditions. Which soil variables best explain the variation in fungal communities?

PCA1 and PCA2 best explain

Moist best explain

3) Investigate whether the observed changes in population size can be related to variation in mycorrhizal communities.  

NMDS RDA？

The population change due to the environment changes significantly influence the mycorrhizal communities