“…Furthermore, it is suggested that some fungal species can adapt to metal toxicity due to prolonged exposure to toxic metals (Khan et al 2017). Among the most abundant genera found in the OIZ shoot mycobiota, previous studies have reported that Aureobasidium (Cu, Pb, Cd), Gibberella (Cu, Zn), Alternaria (Se, Cr, Cu, Cd, Ni, Pb, Zn), Cladosporium (Pb, Zn, Cu, Mn, Cd), and Hormonema (Cu, Ni) are microfungi that exhibit resistance to some heavy metals (Helander 1995;Kumar and Dwivedi 2021;Refaey et al 2021;Zhang et al 2022).…”