MYCOBIOME OF ANJUR FOREST SOIL: AMETABARCODING APPROACH

Soil fungi are crucial for nutrient cycling and plant health. The knowledge pertaining to the diversity offungi reveals the soil health. However, conventional classification methods pose challenges in comprehensivelyidentifying the complete fungal community. The metabarcoding approach offers a powerful and comprehensivealternative for studying fungal diversity in soil ecosystems. This study investigated the diversity of fungal species in soilsamples collected from undisturbed zones within the Anjur Reserve Forest, located in the Chengalpattu District ofTamil Nadu, which falls under the East Deccan Dry Evergreen Ecoregion. Metabarcoding analysis of the soil samplesclustered the sequences into 151 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), yielding a total of 195,908 reads. Thedominant fungal phyla identified were Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Glomeromycota, and Mortierellomycota. At thespecies level, a total of 78 species were identified, with Asterostroma sp. (18654), Muyocopron ficinum (8369),Phaeobotryon mamani (1703), and Verrucaria sp. (1138) being the most abundant. Notably, a significant portion ofthe reads (84,338) could only be classified at the kingdom level (Fungi). Additionally, the study detected DNA fromopportunistic, pathogenic, ectomycorrhizal, and endophytic fungi, suggesting potential introduction by wild animals,birds, or wind. This study highlights the diverse fungal communities present in the Anjur Reserve Forest and theirpotential influence on soil dynamics within this forest ecosystem. The dominance of specific fungal taxa likelycontributes to enhanced nutrient cycling and improved soil structure, playing a crucial role in mitigating soil erosionand maintaining ecosystem stability. Further research focusing on the functional roles of these individual fungal speciesacross different environmental contexts will provide a deeper understanding of their potential in ecosystem managementand restoration. Expanding the study to include a greater number of samples across the East Deccan Dry EvergreenForest ecoregion would further elucidate the significant role of fungi in this unique ecosystem.