Survey of Annual and Seasonal Fungal Communities in Japanese Prunus mume Orchard Soil by Next-Generation Sequencing

Abstract

Fungi play a vital role in the management of soil environment. Although various fungal communities are found in soil, it is difficult to determine the fungal community structure in soil. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive survey of fungal communities in Japanese Prunus mume orchard soil from 2010 to 2012 growing seasons using next-generation sequencing technology. Fungal DNA was directly extracted from the soil samples and the internal transcribed spacer 1 region was amplified by PCR and sequenced. We identified 34,826 fungal clone sequences from the soil samples. The fungal clones were sorted into 2132 operational taxonomic units and a majority of the discriminated clone sequences were classified as Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. The number of fungal species belonging to Ascomycota showed increases in June in the three growing seasons. That belonging to Glomeromycota showed increases in August in the three growing seasons. As Ascomycota fungi are wood decomposers and saprotrophs, the results suggested that the number of plant pathogenic fungi increased in Japanese P. mume orchard soil in June. These findings show for the first time the annual and seasonal fungal community structures in Japanese P. mume orchard soil, and are expected to provide valuable clues for improvement when planting new P. mume trees in Japanese orchards.