RESEARCH ARTICLE Comparative metagenomics approaches to characterize the soil fungal communities of western coastal region, Saudi Arabia Tarek A. A. Moussa1,2,3*, Hassan S. Al-Zahrani1☯, Omar A. Almaghrabi1,2☯, Tamer S. Abdelmoneim1,2,4☯, Michael P. Fuller5 1 Biological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2 Biological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 3 Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt, 4 Department of Agricultural Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt, 5 School of Biological Science, Faculty a1111111111 of Science and Engineering, Plymouth University, Plymouth, United Kingdom a1111111111 a1111111111 ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 Abstract A total of 145007 reads were obtained from pyrosequencing for all the 4 samples. The total OPEN ACCESS count ranged from 11,301,014 (Mecca old road) to 23,503,512 bp (Thuwal). A total of 460 Citation: Moussa TAA, Al-Zahrani HS, Almaghrabi fungal species belonging to 133 genera, 58 families, 33 orders, 13 classes and 4 phyla was OA, Abdelmoneim TS, Fuller MP (2017) identified across the four sites. The most abundant phylum at all four sites was Ascomycota Comparative metagenomics approaches to characterize the soil fungal communities of western followed by Basidiomycota. Four phyla (AscomycotaÐ99.31%, BasidiomycotaÐ0.59%, coastal region, Saudi Arabia. PLoS ONE 12(9): ChytridiomycotaÐ0.04%, GlomeromycotaÐ0.03%) were detected in Khulais. Except for e0185096. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. Glomeromycota, all phyla were detected at Mecca old road (AscomycotaÐ74.26%, Basi- pone.0185096 diomycotaÐ25.71%, ChytridiomycotaÐ0.01%) and Thuwal (AscomycotaÐ99.59%, Basi- Editor: Erika Kothe, Friedrich Schiller University, diomycotaÐ0.40%, ChytridiomycotaÐ0.002%); while only AscomycotaÐ90.98% and GERMANY BasidiomycotaÐ9.01% were detected in Asfan road.