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Diversity of soil fungal communities of Cerrado and its closely surrounding agriculture fields

Archives of Microbiology volume 190, Article number: 129 (2008) Cite this article

Abstract

Cerrado is a savanna-like region that covers a large area of Brazil. Despite its biological importance, the Cerrado has been the focus of few microbial diversity studies. A molecular approach was chosen to characterize the soil fungal communities in four areas of the Cerrado biome: a native Cerrado, a riverbank forest, an area converted to a soybean plantation, and an area converted to pasture. Global diversity of fungal communities in each area was assessed through Ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis which revealed remarkable differences among the areas studied. Sequencing of approximately 200 clones containing 18S rDNA sequences from each library was performed and, according to the genetic distance between sequences, these were assigned to operational taxonomic units (OTUs). A total of 75, 85, 85, and 70 OTUs were identified for the native Cerrado, riverbank forest, pasture, and soybean plantation, respectively. Analysis of sequences using a similarity cutoff value of 1% showed that the number of OTUs for the native Cerrado area was reduced by 35%; for the soybean plantation, a reduction by more than 50% was observed, indicating a reduction in fungal biodiversity associated with anthropogenic activity. This is the first study demonstrating the anthropogenic impact on Cerrado soil fungal diversity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by CNPq, FAP/DF, UCB and Ouro Fino Veterinária grants. B.F.Q. is supported by CNPq grant number 472813/2006-4.

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Affiliations

  1. Genomic Sciences and Biotechnology Program, Universidade Católica de Brasília, SGAN Quadra 916, Av. W5 Norte, Cep. 70.790-160, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Alinne Pereira de Castro, Betania Ferraz Quirino, Georgios Pappas Jr, Adriane Silva Kurokawa, Eduardo Leonardecz Neto & Ricardo Henrique Krüger

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  1. Alinne Pereira de Castro
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  2. Betania Ferraz Quirino
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  3. Georgios Pappas Jr
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  4. Adriane Silva Kurokawa
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  5. Eduardo Leonardecz Neto
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  6. Ricardo Henrique Krüger
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Correspondence to Ricardo Henrique Krüger.

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Communicated by Erko Stackebrandt.

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de Castro, A.P., Quirino, B.F., Pappas, G. et al. Diversity of soil fungal communities of Cerrado and its closely surrounding agriculture fields. Arch Microbiol 190, 129 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-008-0374-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-008-0374-6

Keywords

  • Fungal diversity
  • 18S rDNA
  • Diversity indices
  • Anthropogenic modified soils