Abstract:To further study the fungal community in heavy metal contaminated ecosystems, soil samples were collected from an abandoned chromium (Cr) factory, and fungal community was analyzed by Illumina sequencing of Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) amplicons. The results showed that Cr contamination changed the composition and structure of soil fungal community, but didn’t change the diversity. Fungus showed various responses to Cr contamination. LEfSe analysis revealed that the biomarker changed a lot in the Cr-contaminated samples in comparison with that in the control samples. The changes in fungal community may be caused by the direct toxic effects on fungi by high concentration of Cr and the significant change in soil properties resulting from Cr contamination. Among all the Cr fractions, organic matter-bound Cr and exchangeable Cr showed significant effects on the fungal community and organic matter also showed a significant effect on soil fungal community.

Key words: fungal community; alpha-diversity; beta-diversity; Cr contamination; high-throughput sequencing