Metabarcoding of soil fungi after wild fires

Fire is one of the most important extreme events leading to huge changes of the element speciation and subsequent losses of nutrients and ballast elements from ecosystems during a very short period. Frequent fires in (semi)arid, Mediterranean and even in forest ecosystems induce dramatic reallocation of all elements that microorganisms mobilized, and vegetation uplifted from the saprolite. In this project, the effect of fire on fungal communities and functions will be investigated along a continental transect in the Chilean Coastal Cordillera. In addition, fungal succession will be studied with a special accent on stress-tolerant and mineral-weathering fungi. The functional role of fungi will be supported by comparisons of qPCR analysis to high throughput sequencing data.