The diversity of soil culturable fungi in the three alpine shrub grasslands of Eastern Qilian Mountains

Abstract

To understand the diversity of culturable fungi in soil at alpine sites, Rhododendron fruticosa shrubland, Salix cupularis fruticosa shrubland, and Dasiphoru fruticosa shrubland of the Eastern Qilian Mountains were selected to investigate. Three methods, including traditional culturing, rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis, and economical efficiency analysis, were carried out to estimate the diversity of soil culturable fungi of these three alpine shrublands. A total of 35 strains of culturable fungi were cultured by dilution plate technique and were analyzed by rDNA ITS sequence. The diversity indices such as species abundance (S), Shannon–Wiener index (H), Simpson dominance index (D), and Pielou evenness index (J) of Rhododendron fruticosa shrubland, Salix cupularis fruticosa shrubland, and Dasiphoru fruticosa shrubland were ranged between 16 and 17, 2.66–2.71, 0.92, 0.95–0.97 respectively. The results showed that the diversity of soil fungi were abundant in these three types of alpine shrub grasslands, while further study should be done to explore their potential value.

Keywords

alpine shrub grasslands / culturable fungi / rDNA ITS sequence analysis / diversity

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Key Laboratory of Forest Disaster Warning and Control in Yunnan Province (No. ZK10A104) College of Forestry, Southwest Forestry University and Scientific Research Fund of Yunnan Provincial Department of Education (No. 2012Y225).

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