Soil fungal communities during the reclamation chronosequence of an open-cast coal mining dump

The diversity, composition, ecological guilds and enzyme functions of soil fungal communities in relation to revegetation were assessed during an open-cast mining dump reclamation chronosequence of the soil < 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 years after the start of reclamation. Using high-throughput sequence analysis on internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences, 1059 soil fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified belonging to 64 orders and these were further categorized by ecological guild and enzyme function.