Diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Atlantic forest areas under different land uses

•We evaluated the AMF diversity in areas with different land uses.•The Atlantic forest had the highest number of unique species.•Sporocarpic species are not found in the area with crop rotation.•The AMF community structure does not differ among the four managed forest areas Agricultural land use compromises the viability of Atlantic forest remnants and may permanently alter the structure of the biological soil community. Soil micro-organisms such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) which participate in symbiotic associations with plant roots are of particular importance. In order to assess the impact of cultivation we measured the diversity of AMF in six areas in Goiana, PE, Brazil: a sapodilla plantation, a rubber tree plantation, a mahogany plantation, a eucalyptus plantation, a crop rotation area currently being used to cultivate cassava, and an area of Atlantic forest. A total of 96 samples of rhizospheric soil were collected in the wet (June 2011) and dry (March 2012) seasons. Glomerospores were extracted from the soil, counted and used for AMF species identification. A total of 50 species belonging to 15 genera were recorded. Acaulospora spp. and Glomus spp. predominated, accounting for 52% of total species. The low value found in non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) multivariate analyses (33.2%) indicated that AMF community composition was more affected by different land uses than by physical and chemical characteristics of the soil. Diversity, evenness and richness indices were higher for the environment under greater stress (crop rotation), indicating that mycorrhizal symbiosis could be a strategy by which fungi and plants overcome biotic and abiotic stresses that occur in the soil. Diversity, evenness and richness indices tended to be lower in communities established in climax environments, such as in the Atlantic forest, rather than in the ones established in cultivation areas.