design: We conducted an internal transcribed spacer (ITS1) fungal-specific gene sequencing assay. Briefly, the DNA underwent polymerase chain reaction using forward (5'-ACACACCGCCCGTCGCTACT-3') and reverse primers (5'-TTTCGCTGCGTTCTTCATCG-3'). Polymerase chain reaction amplicons were pooled and purified using Agencourt AMPure XP beads (Beckman Coulter), and the library was prepared using the KAPA LTP library preparation kit (KAPA Biosystems). Sequencing used Illumina MiSeq. Reads were analyzed using DADA2 and taxonomy was assigned using the UNITE database. Open-reference operational taxonomic unit (OTU) picking was done using the QIIME version 1.9 open-reference OTU picking protocol and the UNITE database for the reference-based clustering component. VSEARCH version 1.4.0 was substituted for USEARCH to facilitate higher throughput. The OTU clustering threshold was set at 99% sequence identity to account for fungal heterogeneity. Sequence dereplication and chimera removal were performed using the QIIME quality control protocol. Representative sequences for each OTU cluster were chosen based on sequence abundance. BLAST was used to assign taxonomy using the UNITE database.