Nature conservation in the genomic era: soil fungal diversity assessment in                 protected coastal Salix repens communities in the Netherlands using DNA                 metabarcoding
Western European coastal sand dunes are highly important for nature                 conservation, with communities of the creeping willow (Salix repens) considered                 particularly diverse. We report here the results of the first kingdom-wide fungal                 diversity assessment in S. repens coastal dune vegetation. We sampled soil at ten                 sites in an extended area of joined nature reserves of high ecological value located                 along the North Sea coast of the Netherlands and generated and analyzed 688,434 ITS2                 rDNA sequences using 454 pyrosequencing methods. Fungal communities in Salix repens                 beds are highly diverse and we detected 1211 non-singleton fungal 97% sequence                 similarity OTUs. Our large-scale comparison along a north-south transect indicated                 strong correlation between soil pH and fungal community composition. Furthermore, by                 comparing our soil data with long-term sporocarp-based studies, we detected numerous                 red listed species in our samples, often from previously unknown locations. Our data                 indicates that some of the fungal species currently considered rare are likely more                 abundant than previously thought. Beside providing a wealth of information on the                 diversity of fungal communities and on the distribution of fungal species along the                 coastal dune habitats in the Netherlands, our study demonstrates the potential                 contribution of high-throughput soil sequencing studies to fungal mapping and the                 conservation of red listed fungal and plant species.