Dados do Trabalho

Título

FUNGAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE IN A DESERTIFICATION GRADIENT IN THE CAATINGA BIOME

Resumo

Desertification is the most serious worldwide ecological problem in arid and semiarid climate environments. The decrease in the soil's productive capacity caused by desertification is due to the loss of ecological processes carried out by microbial communities, which are essential for the maintenance of life in this environment. Fungi are one of the main microbial communities in the soil, as they act on the decomposition of organic matter and the availability and transport of nutrients and water for plants. However, it is still unclear how desertification in semiarid regions affects the structure of the fungal community, especially how grazing exclusion reduces the negative effects of overgrazing on the microbial community in the Caatinga biome. In our study, we assessed the fungal community structure in areas of natural vegetation (native), 2. grazing exclusion (restored), and degradation by overgrazing (degraded), at 0-10 cm soil depth in two seasons (dry and rainy). The fungal communities were assessed by sequencing the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) for the total fungal community and the small-subunit ribosomal region for the mycorrhizal fungal community (MF). This study is one of the first to report that the MF families Acaulosporaceae and Glomeraceae should be included as crucial groups to mitigate climate change in dryland soils and also that the orders Pleosporales and Capnodiales are the most abundant in soil total fungal communities in the Caatinga biome. Here, we report that desertification severely modifies soil fungal communities, and grazing exclusion potentially improves soil properties and recovers communities under climate change globally.

Palavras-chave

Sustainable development, microbial communities, soil degradation, semiarid.

Instituição financiadora

FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) - (grant nº 2016/18944-3, 2021/14418-3)