Fuentes-Alburquenque, S.; Olivencia Suez, V.; Aguilera, O.; Águila, B.; Rojas Araya, L.; Mandakovic, D. A Highly Homogeneous Airborne Fungal Community around a Copper Open Pit Mine Reveals the Poor Contribution Made by the Local Aerosolization of Particles. Microorganisms2024, 12, 934.
Fuentes-Alburquenque, S.; Olivencia Suez, V.; Aguilera, O.; Águila, B.; Rojas Araya, L.; Mandakovic, D. A Highly Homogeneous Airborne Fungal Community around a Copper Open Pit Mine Reveals the Poor Contribution Made by the Local Aerosolization of Particles. Microorganisms 2024, 12, 934.
Fuentes-Alburquenque, S.; Olivencia Suez, V.; Aguilera, O.; Águila, B.; Rojas Araya, L.; Mandakovic, D. A Highly Homogeneous Airborne Fungal Community around a Copper Open Pit Mine Reveals the Poor Contribution Made by the Local Aerosolization of Particles. Microorganisms2024, 12, 934.
Fuentes-Alburquenque, S.; Olivencia Suez, V.; Aguilera, O.; Águila, B.; Rojas Araya, L.; Mandakovic, D. A Highly Homogeneous Airborne Fungal Community around a Copper Open Pit Mine Reveals the Poor Contribution Made by the Local Aerosolization of Particles. Microorganisms 2024, 12, 934.
Abstract
Fungi are ubiquitous and metabolically versatile. Their dispersion has important scientific, environmental, health, and economic implications. They can be dispersed through the air by the aerosolization of near surfaces or transported from distant sources. Here, we tested the contribution of local (scale of meters) versus regional (kilometers) sources by analyzing airborne fungal community by ITS sequencing around a copper mine in the North of Chile. The mine was the regional source, whereas soil and vegetal detritus were the local sources at each point. The airborne community was highly homogeneous in ca. 2,000 km2, impeding the detection of regional or local contributions. Ascomycota was the dominant phylum in the three communities. Soil and vegetal detritus communities had lower alpha-diversity, but some taxa had abundance patterns related to the distance to the mine and altitude. On the contrary, the air was compositionally even and unrelated to environmental or spatial factors, except for altitude. The presence of plant pathogens in the air suggests that other distant sources contribute to this region's airborne fungal community and reinforces the complexity of tracking the sources of air microbial communities in a real world where several natural and human activities coexist.
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