NEW FUNGAL-PROXY PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS FOR EURASIAN TROPICAL AND WARM TEMPERATE MIOCENE CLIMATE OPTIMUM PEAT-PRODUCING SYSTEMS

Fungas provide vital ecosystem services, ranging from primary decomposition through nutrient cycling, symbiotic interfaces, and pathogenic behaviors. They are highly sensitive to changes in temperature, humidity, and nutrient availability, and their behavior in a warming world is uncertain, although it is clear that perturbed environments result in less diverse fungal assemblages dominated by saprotrophs. Understanding how past fungas reacted to changing climate and ecosystems is a vital first step in being able to predict future outcomes. The Fungi in a Warmer World project, focused on the Miocene Climate Optimum (MCO) as a likely analog for warming through the end of the century began with an intensive study of Eurasian lignites. While clearly indicating changes in hydroclimate and overall temperature in tandem with plant community change in the two primary study areas (Thailand and Slovakia), no attempt was made to reconstruct the local climate signal provided by the fungi themselves. Advances in our team’s ability to identify fossil fungi to nearest living relative and to reconstruct both the ecological and the climatic signals they provide led to the present re-study. Here we present expanded fungal identifications, permitting discussion of ecological associations for the first time, and provide fungal-proxy-based paleoclimate reconstructions for project study sites in Eurasia.