AUTHOR=Ren Yue , Guo Mishan , Ding Guodong , Wang Yue 

TITLE=Ectomycorrhizal Fungi Associated With Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica Were Altered by Soil Environments With Aging Plantation in a Semi-arid Desert

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.858452

DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2022.858452

ISSN=2296-665X

ABSTRACT=<p><italic>Pinus sylvestris</italic> var. <italic>mongolica</italic> (<italic>P</italic>. <italic>sylvestris</italic>) is a pioneer afforestation species for wind and sand fixation in northern China. However, most plantations have undergone unprecedented degradation since the early 1990s. Ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi are expected to be substantially related to the degradation of <italic>P</italic>. <italic>sylvestris</italic> plantations; however, the direct evidence for this remains unclear. For this purpose, we investigated variation among EcM fungal communities associated with <italic>P</italic>. <italic>sylvestris</italic> root samples of three age groups (half-mature, near-mature, and mature) in Mu Us Desert. Our results found a total of 72 EcM fungal operational taxonomic unit (OTU) belonging to <italic>Basidiomycota</italic> (63) and <italic>Ascomycota</italic> (9). The EcM fungal community is highly enriched in <italic>Rhizopogon</italic>, <italic>Tuber</italic>, <italic>Tomentella</italic>, and <italic>Inocybe</italic>, and the variations of their abundance mainly contribute to community differences. The diversity index and fungal species richness showed increasing trends toward the mature forest but did not reach a significant level (<italic>p</italic> &gt; 0.05). The main factors that affected the dominant EcM fungal community were URE, INV, and SOC, but for the whole EcM fungal community, the effects of soil environments with plantation aging are not significant (<italic>p</italic> &gt; 0.05). Understanding the effects of environmental factors on the structuring of the EcM fungal communities is critical to sustainable forest management in the future.</p>