Major wood-decayer fungal groups have distinct occurrence patterns on woody substrates

Conservation of wood-inhabiting fungi requires sufficient knowledge of their occurrences on woody substrates. We studied and compared two major fungal wood-decayer groups (polypores and corticioids) on dead wood. Eight fungal or substrate groups were separated in the analyses. In total, 6102 dead wood units were surveyed, and 5682 occurrences of 302 fungal species were recorded. Our analyses included also empty dead wood units, which is rather rare in quantitative ecological studies of dead wood species. In general, the occurrence of fungal species did not exactly follow the availability of dead wood substrates, indicating high importance of substrate quality on species.  Furthermore, polypores and corticioids differed from each other in their substrate occurrence patterns. The largest differences were found in diameter classes, corticioids occurring more often on small dead wood units. Our findings emphasize the importance of maintaining the variation in dead wood quality when preserving the diversity of wood-inhabiting fungi.