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Nutrients Availability Shapes Fungal Community Composition and Diversity in the Rare Earth Mine Tailings of Southern Jiangxi, China

Russian Journal of Ecology volume 49, pages 524–533 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

The present study characterized the nutrients availability of three rare earth tailings deserted in different time stages in Southern Jiangxi of China, and revealed the influence of the soil nutrient properties on fungi composition and diversity by using an internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA sequence approach. Three tailings (RS1, RS2 and RS3) and one reference soil (RS4) were sampled. Results showed that a higher levels of AN and TOC occurred in RS1 and RS4, whereas higher contents of SO2-4, TN, NO-3-N, NH+4-N and rare earth elements (REEs) existed in RS2 and RS3, suggesting a high environmental heterogeneity in the different tailings. Metagenomic analysis showed that RS1~RS4 harbored 355, 564, 366 and 507 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), respectively. Alpha diversity analysis showed that RS4, a control sample, had the highest Shannon diversity, whereas RS3, a newly formed tailings, exhibited the lowest Chao1 richness.

Among the monitored environmental variables, AN and SO2-4 were the most important factors affecting the overall fungal community composition and the relative abundances of specific lineages. Additionally, genus Penicillium prevailed in RS1and RS4 while genus Aspergillus dominated in RS2 and RS3, indicating that the nitrification maybe conduct by different fungal genus in different tailings. Together, these results suggest that lower fungal community composition and diversity as well as the alteration in fungi-dominated heterotrophic nitrification may be due to the deteriorative nutrient in rare earth tailings, especially increasing level of sulfate and decreasing level of available nitrogen.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, Jinggangshan University, Ji′an, China

    Genhe He, Xu Liu & Xiaoyu Xiao

  2. School of Life Sciences, Anhui Science and Technology University, Fengyang, China

    Shoucheng Huang

  3. Jiangxi Academy of Forestry, Nanchang, China

    Xiaodong Wang

  4. Department of Hydrosciences, State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, Nanjing, China

    Jichun Wu

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  1. Genhe He
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  2. Xiaodong Wang
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  3. Xu Liu
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  4. Xiaoyu Xiao
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  5. Shoucheng Huang
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Correspondence to Shoucheng Huang.

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He, G., Wang, X., Liu, X. et al. Nutrients Availability Shapes Fungal Community Composition and Diversity in the Rare Earth Mine Tailings of Southern Jiangxi, China. Russ J Ecol 49, 524–533 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1067413618660037

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1067413618660037

Keywords

  • fungal community
  • illumina-based sequencing approach
  • nutrients availability
  • rare earth tailings