Diversity of Fungi on Decomposing Leaf Litter in a Sugarcane Plantation and Their Response to Tillage Practice and Bagasse Mulching: Implications for Management Effects on Litter Decomposition

To minimize the degradation of soil organic matter (SOM) content in conventional sugarcane cropping, it is important to understand how the fungal community contributes to SOM dynamics during the decomposition of sugarcane leaf litter. However, our knowledge of fungal diversity in tropical agroecosystems is currently limited. Thus, we determined the fungal community structure on decomposing sugarcane leaf litter and their response to different soil management systems using the internal transcribed spacer region 1 (ITS1) amplicon sequencing method afforded by Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM). The results indicate that no-tillage had positive effects on the relative abundance of Zygomycota and of some taxa that may prefer a moist environment over conventional tillage, whereas bagasse mulching decreased the richness of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and had positive effect on the relative abundance of slow-growing taxa, which may prefer poor nutrient substrates. Furthermore, a combination of no-tillage and bagasse mulching increased the abundance of unique OTUs. We suggest that the alteration of fungal communities through the changes in soil management practices produces an effect on litter decomposition.