A considerable number of natural environments are being modified by human actions. These ones such as land use may lead to the loss of biodiversity that existed on soil, consequently it causes changes in ecosystems structure and functionality (Viglizzo et al., 2003). The Neotropical Seasonally dry forests (NTDFs) have a close relationship with economic and cultural development (Fajardo et al., 2005). Forests are one of the main carbon sources (C) and 12% is lost through anthropogenic activities, such as the expansion of the agricultural frontier (Balvanera et al., 2012; Pan et al., 2011; van der Werf et al., 2009). The Seasonally dry forests of South America are known as the Gran Chaco (Pennington et al., 2000) and according to Miles et al. (2006) are areas of economic relevance and therefore one of the most vulnerable in the world, the highest percentage of protected areas is found in South America. Anthropogenic processes generate diverse degrees of physical and chemical soil deterioration. The clearing of native forests makes ecosystems more fragile to changes, due to agricultural frontier expansion (Caruso et al., 2012).
The Kingdom of Fungi represent a group of organisms involved in various activities related to the soil ecosystem function as nutrients cycling, disease suppression, soil aggregate formation, carbon sequestration and decomposition of organic compounds (Wahegaonkar et al., 2011). Moreover, the soil fungi appear as symbionts and pathogens and as well as potential regulators of biological activities for example producers of secondary metabolites such as organic acids of relevant interest for the industrial. Fungal activity patterns provide information of the ecological functionality in different environments, throughout space and time scale (Oller Costa et al., 2012). Some estimators could indicate variability of a community thus demonstrating some changes in different groups (Torrella et al., 2011; Caruso et al., 2012). Fungi diversity could be used to assess the ecosystem functioning and its degree of disturbance (Gómez et al., 2015; Silvestro et al., 2018; Moreno et al., 2021a). It’s known that the composition and dynamics of fungal communities depend on the diversity of plants in existence among other sources, such as moisture, pH, temperature, rainfall, chemical changes, soil organism interaction and nutrient availability (Mc Guire et al., 2012; Mueller et al., 2014; Reininger et al., 2015). Other factors have been cited for their indirect effects such as latitude, elevation and soil texture (Wardle et al., 2004).
The soil biological activity is driven by ecological variables as plant density and composition, crop growth stage, and seasons (Moreno et al., 2021b; Silvestro et al., 2017). In consequence and encouraged by the advance of the agricultural frontier we detect the increased of different works that have a principal aim evaluate and detect the effect of anthropogenic management on native forest thought the use of ecological estimates (Caruso et al., 2012; Torrella et al., 2011; Oller-Costa et al., 2012).
The dry Chaco, in Argentina, has large areas with the conditions for the production of soybean, corn and pasture crops. Added to the increase in cereal prices, the increment in mechanization, the availability of technological packages and the increase in rainfall have produced changes in the rate of clearing (Vallejos et al., 2015). If this trend continues, environmental, social and economic changes could occur due to the scarce diversity of agricultural crops that are implanted in the area (Aizen et al., 2009) and the trend towards the landscape homogenization. It is observed that the soybean crop (Glycine max) has increased the acreage by 45% from 1990 to 2006, replacing wheat (Triticum sp.).
Regarding the analysis of soil fungal communities, most of the studies in Argentina respond to agricultural soils, in which an attempt has been made to link the different agricultural practices and management with the response of the soil fungal community (Albanesi et al., 2001; Elíades et al., 2004; Bonel et al., 2005; Luque et al., 2005; Gómez et al., 2007; Vargas Gil et al., 2008; Ferreri 2020) and especially in the agricultural nucleus (Fracchia et al., 2003; Nesci et al., 2006; Gómez et al., 2015; Domínguez et al., 2009; Lori et al., 2009; Moreno et al., 2021a; Silvestro et al., 2013, 2018). Specifically, in NTDFs, studies in Dry Chaco are scarce (Merlos et al., 2018). In this way the main was to analyze the response of soil fungal community due to agricultural soil management.