Radosevich Molly, Head Jennifer, Couper Lisa, Weaver Amanda, Camponuri Simon, Montoya Liliam, Taylor John W, Remais Justin
Environmental Health Sciences, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
J Fungi (Basel). 2025 Apr 14;11(4):309. doi: 10.3390/jof11040309.
Coccidioidomycosis is a fungal disease affecting humans and other mammals caused by environmental pathogens of the genus . Human exposure to the pathogen occurs via inhalation of spores aerosolized from soil. Thus, understanding the ecological factors that shape the distribution of in soils is important for minimizing the risk of human exposure, though this task remains challenging due to the pathogen's highly variable spatial distribution. Here, we examined the associations between the soil microbial community and ' presence within the Carrizo Plain National Monument, a minimally disturbed grassland ecosystem, and the site of a longitudinal study examining the effects of rodents and their burrows on ' presence in soils. Using internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) and 16S amplicon sequencing to characterize the soil fungal and bacterial communities, we found over 30 fungal species, including several other members of the Onygenales order, that co-occurred with more frequently than would be expected by chance. -positive samples were significantly higher in fungal and bacterial diversity than negative samples, an association partly driven by higher presence within rodent burrows compared to surface soils. Soil source (i.e., rodent burrow versus surface soil) explained the largest amount of variation in bacterial and fungal community diversity and composition, with soils collected from rodent burrows having higher fungal and bacterial diversity than those collected from adjacent surface soils. While prior evidence is mixed regarding the relationship between the presence of and microbial diversity, we find that favorable microhabitats, such as rodent burrows, lead to a positive association between soil microbial diversity and presence, particularly in otherwise resource-limited natural environments.
球孢子菌病是一种由该属环境病原体引起的影响人类和其他哺乳动物的真菌病。人类通过吸入从土壤中雾化的孢子接触该病原体。因此，了解影响土壤中该病原体分布的生态因素对于将人类接触风险降至最低很重要，不过由于该病原体的空间分布高度可变，这项任务仍然具有挑战性。在这里，我们研究了土壤微生物群落与卡里佐平原国家纪念区内该病原体存在之间的关联，该纪念区是一个受干扰最小的草原生态系统，也是一项纵向研究的地点，该研究考察了啮齿动物及其洞穴对土壤中该病原体存在的影响。我们使用内部转录间隔区2（ITS2）和16S扩增子测序来表征土壤真菌和细菌群落，发现了30多种真菌物种，包括爪甲团囊菌目（Onygenales）的其他几个成员，它们与该病原体同时出现的频率高于偶然预期。阳性样本中的真菌和细菌多样性显著高于阴性样本，这种关联部分是由于与表层土壤相比，啮齿动物洞穴中该病原体的存在更多。土壤来源（即啮齿动物洞穴与表层土壤）解释了细菌和真菌群落多样性及组成变化的最大部分，从啮齿动物洞穴收集的土壤比从相邻表层土壤收集的土壤具有更高的真菌和细菌多样性。虽然关于该病原体的存在与微生物多样性之间的关系，先前的证据并不一致，但我们发现有利的微生境，如啮齿动物洞穴，会导致土壤微生物多样性与该病原体的存在呈正相关，特别是在其他资源有限的自然环境中。
