Fuentes-Alburquenque Sebastián, Olivencia Suez Victoria, Aguilera Omayra, Águila Blanca, Rojas Araya Luis, Mandakovic Dinka
Centro de Investigación en Recursos Naturales y Sustentabilidad, Escuela de Medicina Veterinaria, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins, Santiago 8370993, Chile.
Departamento de Matemáticas y Ciencias de la Ingeniería, Escuela de Ingeniaría Civil, Facultad de Ingeniería Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins, Santiago 8370993, Chile.
Microorganisms. 2024 May 4;12(5):934. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms12050934.
Fungi are ubiquitous and metabolically versatile. Their dispersion has important scientific, environmental, health, and economic implications. They can be dispersed through the air by the aerosolization of near surfaces or transported from distant sources. Here, we tested the contribution of local (scale of meters) versus regional (kilometers) sources by analyzing an airborne fungal community by ITS sequencing around a copper mine in the North of Chile. The mine was the regional source, whereas the soil and vegetal detritus were the local sources at each point. The airborne community was highly homogeneous at ca. 2000 km, impeding the detection of regional or local contributions. Ascomycota was the dominant phylum in the three communities. Soil and vegetal detritus communities had lower alpha diversity, but some taxa had abundance patterns related to the distance from the mine and altitude. On the contrary, the air was compositionally even and unrelated to environmental or spatial factors, except for altitude. The presence of plant pathogens in the air suggests that other distant sources contribute to this region's airborne fungal community and reinforces the complexity of tracking the sources of air microbial communities in a real world where several natural and human activities coexist.
真菌无处不在，代谢方式多样。它们的扩散具有重要的科学、环境、健康和经济意义。它们可以通过近地表的气溶胶化在空气中扩散，或者从遥远的来源传输过来。在这里，我们通过对智利北部一座铜矿周围的空气传播真菌群落进行ITS测序，测试了本地（米级）与区域（千米级）来源的贡献。该矿山是区域来源，而土壤和植物残体是每个采样点的本地来源。在约2000千米的范围内，空气传播的群落高度均匀，这阻碍了对区域或本地贡献的检测。子囊菌门是这三个群落中的优势门类。土壤和植物残体群落的α多样性较低，但一些分类群的丰度模式与距矿山的距离和海拔有关。相反，除海拔外，空气的组成均匀，与环境或空间因素无关。空气中植物病原体的存在表明，其他遥远的来源对该地区的空气传播真菌群落有贡献，并强化了在自然和人类活动并存的现实世界中追踪空气微生物群落来源的复杂性。
