Soil fungi in desert ecosystems are adapted to harsh environmental conditions such as high soil surface temperatures and limited organic matter and water. Given limited carbon inputs from plant material, heterotrophic fungi likely use unconventional sources of carbon in these systems. A baiting method was used to culture keratinophilic fungi from biocrust and rhizosphere soils in an arid grassland in Utah, USA. Fungi were baited using llama and sheep wool, horsehair, and snakeskin on two media, and pure cultures were identified using ITS and LSU rRNA sequences. One hundred-eighteen fungal colonies were grown, representing a total of 32 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) at 97 % similarity. Cultures were dominated by the phylum Ascomycota (88 %) followed by Mucoromycota (8.6 %) and Basidiomycota (3.4 %). The orders Pleosporales, Eurotiales, Hypocreales, and Sordariales were commonly isolated, with the dominant taxa Alternaria (27 %), Aspergillus (22 %), Fusarium (11 %), and Chaetomium (8%). Thirty percent of the fungi isolated have the capacity to degrade keratin in vitro using a keratin azure assay, with Penicillium showing the highest degradation followed by Geomyces, Alternaria, and Fusarium. Although keratin degraders can be infectious, dermatophytes associated with skin infections were not isolated in culture or detected in Illumina sequencing. Illumina sequencing was used to determine general patterns in seasonal variation and habitat preference of keratinophiles. Alternaria was the most abundant genus with >70 % of the sequences. The combination of Illumina data with culture-dependent approaches facilitated the characterization of a specialized community and confirmed the low abundance of dermatophytes in this arid site.

沙漠生态系统中的土壤真菌适应恶劣的环境条件，例如高土壤表面温度以及有限的有机物和水。考虑到来自植物材料的有限碳输入，异养真菌可能会在这些系统中使用非常规碳源。在美国犹他州的干旱草原上，使用诱饵法从生物结壳和根际土壤中培养了角蛋白亲和性真菌。使用羊驼毛和绵羊毛，马毛和蛇皮在两种培养基上诱捕真菌，并使用ITS和LSU rRNA序列鉴定纯培养物。生长了一百一十八个真菌菌落，代表了总共32个操作分类单位（OTU），相似性为97％。培养中以子囊门（88％）为主，其次是毛霉菌（8.6％）和担子菌（3.4％）。订单Pleosporales，Eurotiales，交链孢菌（27％），曲霉菌（22％），镰刀菌（11％）和绒毛膜（8％）。使用角蛋白天蓝色测定法，分离出的真菌中有30％具有体外降解角蛋白的能力，其中青霉菌的降解率最高，其次是Geomyces，Alternaria和Fusarium。尽管角蛋白降解物可能具有传染性，但与皮肤感染相关的皮肤真菌并未在培养物中分离出来，也未在Illumina测序中检测到。Illumina测序用于确定角蛋白亲和者的季节性变化和栖息地偏好的一般模式。链格孢属是最丰富的属，有> 70％的序列。Illumina数据与依赖于文化的方法相结合，促进了特定社区的表征，并证实了该干旱地区皮肤植物的丰度较低。