[Community structure and diversity formation of fermentation fungi in traditional Shaoxing Huangjiu]

To reveal the formation mechanism of fungal community and diversity during the production of Shaoxing Huangjiu, we examined fungal communities in the samples of Linfanjiumu, Maiqu and fermentation mash based on Illumina MiSeq PE300 high-throughput sequencing platform. A total of 136000, 215283, 166150, and 143624 sequences were obtained from the samples of Linfanjiumu, Maiqu, initial mash and mature mash, respectively. After clustering, 32, 133, 107 and 84 OUT (operational taxonomic units) were obtained, respectively. The diversity and richness of fungi were in order of Maiqu > initial mash > mature mash > Linfanjiumu. At the level of phylum, Ascomycota were dominant in all samples. At genus level, Saccharomyces was dominant in Linfanjiumu, Aspergillus was dominant in Maiqu, and Saccharomyces and Aspergillus were the dominant fungi in the initial and mature mash. With the extension of the fermentation time, the proportion of Saccharomyces gradually increased in the mash, while other fungal groups including Aspergillus showed a decreasing trend. According to the results of PCoA analysis and similarity cluster analysis, the structure of fungi community in Linfanjiumu, initial mash and mature mash was much similar, while the fungal resources in Maiqu were quite different from other samples. The analysis of fungal community characteristics in the initial mash showed that the Linfanjiumu and Maiqu affected fungal diversity in Shaoxing Huangjiu. The dominant species of saccharification and fermentation starter (Linfanjiumu and Maiqu) played a leading role in driving community assembly of fermentation fungi.