Abstract: Soil microbial communities can be affected by heavy metal contamination induced by the coal-based industrial activities. We analyzed the differences of soil physicochemical properties, heavy metal concentrations and enzyme activities surrounding different coal-based industrial plants (coal mining industry, coal preparation industry, coal-based chemical industry, coal-fired power industry) in a typical coal-based industrial region in Shanxi Province. Soil samples from farmland and parks away from all the industrial plants were collected as references. We identified the composition of soil fungal communities based on high-throughput sequencing technology. The results showed that the contents of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb and Hg were higher than the background values of corresponding elements in soils in Shanxi Province, and that the Cd and Pb contents around the coal preparation plants were the highest. The activities of cellulase and alkaline phosphatase displayed significant differences among different plants, with soil cellulase activity being the highest around the coal-based chemical plant. Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the dominant fungal phyla with the largest relative abundance. The relative abundance of the dominant fungal phyla was significantly different across different plants. Ascomycota was the predominant fungal phylum surrounding the coal-based chemical plants, with the greatest relative abundance (79.30%). Results of redundancy analysis, variance partitioning analysis and Spearman correlation analysis showed that soil fungal community structure was significantly positively correlated with Cd content, total nitrogen content, and alkaline phosphatase activities (P<0.05), with Cd content having the strongest effect on soil fungal community.

Key words: coal-based industry, heavy metal contamination, fungal community, redundancy analysis, environmental factor