Influence of Agaricus bisporus establishment and fungicidal treatments on casing soil metataxonomy during mushroom cultivation

Abstract The cultivation of edible mushroom is an emerging sector with a potential yet to be discovered. Unlike plants, it is a less developed agriculture where many studies are lacking to optimize the cultivation. In this work we have employed high-throughput techniques by next generation sequencing to screen the microbial structure of casing soil employed in mushroom cultivation (Agaricus bisporus) while sequencing V3-V4 of the 16S rRNA gene for bacteria and the ITS2 region of rRNA for. In addition, the microbiota dynamics and evolution (bacterial and fungal communities) in peat-based casing along the process of incubation of A. bisporus have been studied, while comparing the effect of fungicide treatment (chlorothalonil and metrafenone). Statistically significant changes in populations of bacteria and fungi were observed. Microbial composition differed significantly based on incubation day, changing radically from the original communities in the raw material to a specific microbial composition driven by the A. bisporus mycelium growth. Chlorothalonil treatment seems to delay casing colonization by A. bisporus. Proteobacteria and Bacteroidota appeared as the most dominant bacterial phyla. We observed a great change in the structure of the bacteria populations between day 0 and the following days. Fungi populations changed more gradually, with A. bisporus displacing the rest of the species as the cultivation cycle progresses. A better understanding of the microbial communities in the casing will hopefully allow us to increase the biological efficiency of the crop.