Soil fungal communities Metagenome. soil metagenome

The objective of this study was to understand the effect of soil P level and the composition of grassland plants, in particular the presence of N-fixing legumes on the structure and diversity of AM and other fungi. We examined four plant assemblage treatments: (1) a mix of seven grass species that are native to the region, (2) the native grass mix grown with the domesticated N-fixing legume Medicago sativa, (3) the native grass mix grown with the native N-fixing legume Dalea purpurea, and (4) the introduced grass Bromus biebersteinii grown with M. sativa. The mix of B. biebersteinii and M. sativa is commonly used in the semi-arid zone of the Canadian Prairie. These plant assemblage treatments were crossed with P fertilization, with each plant assemblage receiving either 0 or 200 kg ha-1 of P2O5 as triple super-phosphate at seeding, two years prior to this experiment. We harvested soil samples in two consecutive years (2008 and 2009), extracted total DNA, used PCR amplification to target either the AM fungal community (18S rDNA) or total fungal community (ITS), and sequenced these amplicons using 454-FLX Titanium technology. In forage stands, the inclusion of N-fixing legumes and/or the addition of P fertilizer are common practices to increase plant yield, while these treatments may modify soil fungal diversity and function.