Characteristics of Fungal Communities in Soils at Tea Plantations of Varied Types in Central Guizhou Mountainous  Areas

Structure and functional characteristics of thefungal communities in the soils at tea plantations of varied types in the mountainousregions in central Guizhou were compared. Soil specimens from newly established(Tx), traditional (Tp), and “Tencha” (Tn) plantations, along with those fromthe surrounding Pinus massoniana forests as control, in Jiuan township,Huaxi district, Guiyang were collected for high-throughput sequencing on thefungal ITS amplified fragments. Results The fungal community OTU richness ofthe tea plantations ranked Tx (1636)>Tp (1281)>Tn (1197). Regardless ofplantation type, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the dominant phyla, whileunclassified_o__Chaetothyriales, Aspergillaceae, Trimorphomycetaceae, andMyxotrichaceae the dominant families in the soils. On the other hand,significant differences were shown in the hierarchical clustering andnon-metric multidimensional scale analysis. Available P and organic matters insoil were found to be the crucial factors affecting the community propertiesaccording to a CCA analysis. And the FUNGuild predictions suggested theundefined saprotrophic, fungal parasite-undefined saprotrophic, and ericoidmycorrhizal fungi to be major responsible functional groups. The fungalcommunities in soils significantly differed in the structures and functions attea plantations of different types at the region.