Estudio de la microbiota fungica asociada a suelos de bosques nativos y plantaciones forestales usando técnicas independientes de cultivo en la provincia de Chimborazo.

Abstract

The aim of this research was to study the fungal microbiota associated with soils of native and plantations forest using independent cultivation techniques, for that reason, 10 soil samples were collected in different localities of the province of Chimborazo, the samples were sent to the processing laboratory. Genomic DNA extraction was outsourced to IDgen in Quito, which used the Herculase II Fusion DNA Polymerase Nextera XT extraction kit and the company recommended protocol. For library preparation, the protocol ITS Metagenomic Sequencing Library Preparation Part # 15044223 Rev. B was used. The platform used for sequencing was Illumina MiSeq, the sequencing was 300 base pairs (bp) pair end, and was performed at Macrogen Korea. Additional sequence processing was executed using Mothur version 1.39.5. The sequences were pre-clustered to reduce sequencing error, chimera detection and elimination were performed. Finally, fungal sequences were classified using the UNITE-ITS database. All sequences were grouped into 97% operational taxonomic units (OTU). Descriptive and multivariate nonparametric statistics were used for data analysis. All analyses were performed in R software version 4.0. The sequencing of the fungal microbiome generated 816 342 sequences belonging to native forest soils, 412 796 sequences from forest plantation soils and finally 135 658 sequences from disturbed soil. It is concluded that the forest plantation soils presented lower fungal diversity in relation with the native forest soils, which presented higher fungal diversity. It is recommended to carry out studies and isolation of fungi in native forest soils of higher diversity presented in this study, to evaluate their potential in silviculture.