Mulching (cutting of vegetation without removal of clippings) is used as a low-cost method for maintaining remote or abandoned grasslands in Slovakia. The likely consequence of mulching is seasonal nutrient enrichment resulting from decomposition of plant litter by saprotrophic organisms. The potential changes in biodiversity of the ecosystem caused by long-term application of mulching are to date only very poorly understood. In order to examine the impact of mulching on soil mycobiota, we compared six different grassland management regimes applied over nine years on a sub-montane oligotrophic Nardus pasture in the Central Slovakia. The diversity of soil fungi was assessed using DNA metabarcoding of the ITS2 regions of the nrRNA locus performed by Illumina MiSeq.

We focused on a particular group of macrofungi which is characteristic of traditionally managed and undisturbed European grasslands, and which are often the dominant soil fungi in these habitats. These are collectively known as CHEGD fungi (the acronym of the constituent taxa: Clavariaceae, Hygrophoraceae, Entolomataceae, Geoglossaceae and Dermoloma). We compared the relative abundance and diversity of CHEGD fungi with the total fungal and plant diversity. CHEGD fungi were dominant across all management treatments. Although there were no statistical effects of treatments on total fungal richness and diversity, CHEGD fungi and vascular plants diversity and richness were lower on plots where mulching or no management were imposed, suggesting that such management regimes would have a negative impact on grassland fungi. However, no single treatment covered the total CHEGD diversity of the study, indicating that the localized use of mulching in addition to traditional managements can enhance overall diversity of grasslands in the area. Our results also suggest that the impact of mulching depends on the season when the grassland is mulched and it might be reduced by combination with other management treatments. The high relative abundance and sensitivity of CHEDG fungi in oligotrophic grasslands to management treatments makes them excellent indicators of grassland natural quality and is consistent with the ecological importance of this fungal group.

覆盖（砍伐植被而不去除剪枝）被用作维护斯洛伐克偏远或废弃草地的低成本方法。覆盖的可能结果是季节性营养物质的富集，这是由于腐生生物分解了植物凋落物。迄今为止，人们对由长期应用覆盖引起的生态系统生物多样性潜在变化的了解还很少。为了检查覆盖对土壤分枝杆菌的影响，我们比较了斯洛伐克中部亚山地贫营养型纳尔杜斯牧场在九年中应用的六个不同的草地管理制度。使用Illumina MiSeq对nrRNA基因座的ITS2区域进行DNA元条形码编码来评估土壤真菌的多样性。

我们专注于特定的大型真菌，它们是传统管理和未受干扰的欧洲草原的特征，并且通常是这些生境中的主要土壤真菌。这些被统称为CHEGD真菌（组成类群的首字母缩写：君子兰科，潮草科，昆虫纲，地缘科和皮毛瘤）。我们将CHEGD真菌的相对丰度和多样性与真菌和植物的总多样性进行了比较。CHEGD真菌在所有处理方法中均占主导地位。尽管处理对总真菌的丰富度和多样性没有统计学影响，但在进行覆盖或不进行管理的地块上，CHEGD真菌和维管束植物的多样性和丰富度较低，这表明这种管理方式会对草原真菌产生负面影响。然而，没有任何一种处理方法能够涵盖该研究的全部CHEGD多样性，这表明除传统管理外，局部覆盖覆盖还可以增强该地区草地的整体多样性。我们的研究结果还表明，覆盖的影响取决于草地覆盖的季节，与其他管理措施结合使用可能会减少覆盖的影响。贫营养草原中CHEDG真菌对管理措施的相对丰度和敏感性较高，使其成为草原自然质量的优良指标，并且与该真菌类的生态重要性相符。我们的研究结果还表明，覆盖的影响取决于草地覆盖的季节，与其他管理措施结合使用可能会减少覆盖的影响。贫营养草原中CHEDG真菌对管理措施的相对丰度和敏感性较高，使其成为草原自然质量的优良指标，并且与该真菌类的生态重要性相符。我们的研究结果还表明，覆盖的影响取决于草地覆盖的季节，与其他管理措施结合使用可能会减少覆盖的影响。贫营养草原中CHEDG真菌对管理措施的相对丰度和敏感性较高，使其成为草原自然质量的优良指标，并且与该真菌类的生态重要性相符。