Effects of warming on soil fungal community and its function in a temperate steppe

Abstract Background The potential effects of global warming on soil fungal communities and their functions remain uncertain. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of 3-year simulated field warming on the community and function of fungi in a temperate steppe of Inner Mongolia, northern China. Methods The diversity and structure of the fungal community were measured by high-throughput sequencing. The functionality of fungal communities was identified by comparison with the ITS reference database. Results Our results showed that warming did not affect the diversity of fungi, but significantly increased the complexity of the fungal community, with fungal taxa more closely associating with each other. We observed that plant pathogens and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi were the most abundant functional groups. Meanwhile, warming significantly decreased the relative abundance of animal pathogens. Conclusions Warming significantly increased the complexity of the fungal community, with soil pH being the main factor affecting soil fungal function. Our findings emphasize that the response of the fungal community and its functional groups to warming has significant implications for ecosystem biogeochemical cycling.