Living Fungi in an Opencast Limestone Mine: Who Are They and What Can They Do?

Chakriya Sansupa; Witoon Purahong; Ali Nawaz; Tesfaye Wubet; Nakarin Suwannarach; Panuwan Chantawannakul; Sutthathorn Chairuangsri; Terd Disayathanoowat

doi:10.3390/jof8100987

Living Fungi in an Opencast Limestone Mine: Who Are They and What Can They Do?

J Fungi (Basel). 2022 Sep 20;8(10):987. doi: 10.3390/jof8100987.

Authors

Chakriya Sansupa¹, Witoon Purahong², Ali Nawaz^{3

4}, Tesfaye Wubet^{3

5}, Nakarin Suwannarach^{1

6}, Panuwan Chantawannakul^{1

6}, Sutthathorn Chairuangsri¹, Terd Disayathanoowat^{1

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.
² Department of Soil Ecology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany.
³ Department of Community Ecology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany.
⁴ Department of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Munich, Am Coulombwall 3, 85748 Garching, Germany.
⁵ German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
⁶ Research Center of Microbial Diversity and Sustainable Utilization, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.
⁷ Research Center in Bioresources for Agriculture, Industry and Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.

Abstract

Opencast limestone mines or limestone quarries are considered challenging ecosystems for soil fungi as they are highly degraded land with specific conditions, including high temperature, prolonged sunlight exposure, and a lack of organic matter, moisture, and nutrients in soil. In such ecosystems, certain fungi can survive and have a crucial function in maintaining soil ecosystem functions. Unfortunately, we know very little about taxonomic diversity, potential functions, and the ecology of such fungi, especially for a limestone quarry in a tropical region. Here, we characterized and compared the living soil fungal communities in an opencast limestone mine, including mining site and its associated rehabilitation site (9 months post-rehabilitation), with the soil fungal community in a reference forest, using the amplicon sequencing of enrichment culture. Our results showed that living fungal richness in the quarry areas was significantly lower than that in the reference forest, and their community compositions were also significantly different. Living fungi in the mining sites mostly comprised of Ascomycota (Eurotiomycetes and Sordariomycetes) with strongly declined abundance or absence of Basidiomycota and Mucoromycota. After nine months of rehabilitation, certain taxa were introduced, such as Hypoxylon spp. and Phellinus noxius, though this change did not significantly differentiate fungal community composition between the mining and rehabilitation plots. The majority of fungi in these plots are classified as saprotrophs, which potentially produce all fifteen soil enzymes used as soil health indicators. Network analysis, which was analyzed to show insight into complex structures of living fungal community in the limestone quarry, showed a clear modular structure that was significantly impacted by different soil properties. Furthermore, this study suggests potential taxa that could be useful for future rehabilitation.

Keywords: fungal community; fungi; limestone quarry; microbial function; mine rehabilitation; restoration; soil functions.

Grants and funding

Fieldwork and partial laboratory supply of this research were funded by the Siam Cement (Lampang) Co. Ltd. The funder had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study. Open Access funding was enabled and organized by the Department of Soil Ecology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.