Total fungi and yeast distribution in soils over native and modified vegetation in central Brazil

ABSTRACT

Fungi are ubiquitous components of soil microbial communities, generally comprise the largest proportion of soil biomass. They can occur as filamentous forms or unicellular yeasts, in both, as free-living or symbionts. Next generation sequencing has allowed greater depth of the access to soil fungal diversity complementing culture-dependent results. In Brazil, the state of Minas Gerais is recognized for its mining activity, which modifies the vegetation cover and consequently the soil microbial communities. To describe the fungal community (total fungi and yeast) in a post-mining area, comparing natural and modified ecosystems, we used environmental metabarcoding of ITS2 region. We assessed four ecosystems, with different vegetation and levels of impact, ranging from none to high impact (Atlantic forest, Iron outcrops, Eucalyptus, and Grass). Sequence data were compared with culture data obtained from previous studies. The fungal communities (total fungi and yeast) were more similar between Eucalyptus and Atlantic Forest, while Grass and Iron outcrops ecosystems showed greater dissimilarity. Despite its modified state, Grass ecosystem presented the highest alpha diversity values. Yeasts represented a proportion of fungal communities ranging from 1.7 to 17 % of fungal sequences in soil. The Ascomycota:Basidiomycota ratio was higher for the total fungi analysis, while a greater proportion of Basidiomycota was observed with the yeast analysis. Grass ecosystem was the only exception, where a higher proportion of ascomycetous yeasts was detected. The yeast communities responded to the environmental stress caused by the mining activity, resulting in changes in the composition, mainly increasing the abundance of black yeasts. Saitozyma podzolica relative abundance obtained with ITS sequencing was coherent with the findings obtained with culture data. Despite greater diversity depth obtained by metabarcoding, sequence and culture data were complementary tools in describing the fungal soil community. This study contributes significantly to the inventory of yeast species in tropical and subtropical soils.

tropical forest; post-mining; black yeast; Saitozyma; metabarcoding