Metabarcoding Reveals Soil Fungal Diversity Shifts in the Artificial Cloud Forest and Volcanic Desert of Ascension Island

Kleopatra Grammatiki; Nadieh de Jonge; Jacob Hargreaves; Michele Cleary; Diana Marčiulynienė; Eleni Kytinou; A F Peters; Thomas E. Freitag; Pieter van West; Frithjof Kuepper; Stephen Woodward

doi:10.1016/j.funeco.2026.101542

Metabarcoding Reveals Soil Fungal Diversity Shifts in the Artificial Cloud Forest and Volcanic Desert of Ascension Island

Kleopatra Grammatiki
, Nadieh de Jonge
, Jacob Hargreaves
, Michele Cleary
, Diana Marčiulynienė
, Eleni Kytinou
, A F Peters
, Thomas E. Freitag
, Pieter van West
, Frithjof Kuepper^* (Corresponding Author)
, Stephen Woodward^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aalborg University
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
University of the Aegean
Uppsala BioCenter
The James Hutton Institute

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Ascension Island is a remote oceanic island that was a volcanic desert prior to human colonisation. In the 19th century, an artificial cloud forest was established by a military garrison to improve the scarce water supply. Using ITS metabarcoding of topsoil environmental DNA, we compared the fungal communities of the desert and the Green Mountain cloud forest. Forest soils had higher total nitrogen and carbon, and lower pH than desert soils. Fungal richness was higher in forest soils and ordination analysis revealed distinct fungal communities in each habitat. Both habitats contained a high percentage of unclassified fungal OTUs, implying the presence of native/endemic fungal flora, with a shift from Ascomycota in the desert to Asco-Basidiomycota in the forest. Indicator species analysis revealed habitat- and vegetation-specific fungal taxa, and the presence of cosmopolitan fungi in forest and unknown fungi in the desert soils, suggesting reshaping of fungal communities due to the afforestation.

Original language	English
Article number	101542
Number of pages	10
Journal	Fungal Ecology
Early online date	1 Sept 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.funeco.2026.101542
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 1 Sept 2026

Funding

We acknowledge the support of the Shackleton Fund (Falkland Islands) to FCK, who also received funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, programme Oceans 2025 – WP 4.5 and grants NE/D521522/1 and NE/J023094/1) and the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.

Funders	Funder number
Natural Environment Research Council	NE/D521522/1, NE/J023094/1
Scottish Funding Council	HR09011

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10.1016/j.funeco.2026.101542Licence: CC BY

Cite this

Grammatiki, K., de Jonge, N., Hargreaves, J., Cleary, M., Marčiulynienė , D., Kytinou, E., Peters, A. F., Freitag, T. E., van West, P., Kuepper, F., & Woodward, S. (2026). Metabarcoding Reveals Soil Fungal Diversity Shifts in the Artificial Cloud Forest and Volcanic Desert of Ascension Island. Fungal Ecology, Article 101542. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.funeco.2026.101542

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title = "Metabarcoding Reveals Soil Fungal Diversity Shifts in the Artificial Cloud Forest and Volcanic Desert of Ascension Island",

abstract = "Ascension Island is a remote oceanic island that was a volcanic desert prior to human colonisation. In the 19th century, an artificial cloud forest was established by a military garrison to improve the scarce water supply. Using ITS metabarcoding of topsoil environmental DNA, we compared the fungal communities of the desert and the Green Mountain cloud forest. Forest soils had higher total nitrogen and carbon, and lower pH than desert soils. Fungal richness was higher in forest soils and ordination analysis revealed distinct fungal communities in each habitat. Both habitats contained a high percentage of unclassified fungal OTUs, implying the presence of native/endemic fungal flora, with a shift from Ascomycota in the desert to Asco-Basidiomycota in the forest. Indicator species analysis revealed habitat- and vegetation-specific fungal taxa, and the presence of cosmopolitan fungi in forest and unknown fungi in the desert soils, suggesting reshaping of fungal communities due to the afforestation.",

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AU - de Jonge, Nadieh

AU - Hargreaves, Jacob

AU - Cleary, Michele

AU - Marčiulynienė , Diana

AU - Kytinou, Eleni

AU - Peters, A F

AU - Freitag, Thomas E.

AU - van West, Pieter

AU - Kuepper, Frithjof

AU - Woodward, Stephen

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AB - Ascension Island is a remote oceanic island that was a volcanic desert prior to human colonisation. In the 19th century, an artificial cloud forest was established by a military garrison to improve the scarce water supply. Using ITS metabarcoding of topsoil environmental DNA, we compared the fungal communities of the desert and the Green Mountain cloud forest. Forest soils had higher total nitrogen and carbon, and lower pH than desert soils. Fungal richness was higher in forest soils and ordination analysis revealed distinct fungal communities in each habitat. Both habitats contained a high percentage of unclassified fungal OTUs, implying the presence of native/endemic fungal flora, with a shift from Ascomycota in the desert to Asco-Basidiomycota in the forest. Indicator species analysis revealed habitat- and vegetation-specific fungal taxa, and the presence of cosmopolitan fungi in forest and unknown fungi in the desert soils, suggesting reshaping of fungal communities due to the afforestation.

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DO - 10.1016/j.funeco.2026.101542

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ER -

Metabarcoding Reveals Soil Fungal Diversity Shifts in the Artificial Cloud Forest and Volcanic Desert of Ascension Island

Abstract

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