Department of Microbiological Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, 58102, USA.
Agroscope, Plant-Soil Interactions Group, 8046, Zurich, Switzerland.
Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 6;15(1):327. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44073-6.
Soil fungi are a key constituent of global biodiversity and play a pivotal role in agroecosystems. How arable farming affects soil fungal biogeography and whether it has a disproportional impact on rare taxa is poorly understood. Here, we used the high-resolution PacBio Sequel targeting the entire ITS region to investigate the distribution of soil fungi in 217 sites across a 3000 km gradient in Europe. We found a consistently lower diversity of fungi in arable lands than grasslands, with geographic locations significantly impacting fungal community structures. Prevalent fungal groups became even more abundant, whereas rare groups became fewer or absent in arable lands, suggesting a biotic homogenization due to arable farming. The rare fungal groups were narrowly distributed and more common in grasslands. Our findings suggest that rare soil fungi are disproportionally affected by arable farming, and sustainable farming practices should protect rare taxa and the ecosystem services they support.
土壤真菌是全球生物多样性的关键组成部分，在农业生态系统中发挥着关键作用。耕地如何影响土壤真菌的生物地理学分布，以及它是否对稀有分类群产生不成比例的影响，这些都知之甚少。在这里，我们使用高分辨率的 PacBio Sequel 靶向整个 ITS 区域，在欧洲 3000 公里梯度的 217 个地点调查土壤真菌的分布。我们发现，耕地中的真菌多样性始终低于草地，地理位置显著影响真菌群落结构。普遍存在的真菌群变得更加丰富，而在耕地中，稀有群则变得更少或不存在，这表明由于耕地耕作导致生物同质化。稀有真菌群分布狭窄，在草地中更为常见。我们的研究结果表明，稀有土壤真菌受到耕地耕作的不成比例影响，可持续的耕作实践应该保护稀有分类群及其支持的生态系统服务。
