Plant invasion typically alters the microbial communities of soils, which affects ecosystem carbon (C) and nitrogen
(N) cycles. The responses of the soil fungal communities to plant invasion along its chronosequence remain poorly understood. For this study,we investigated variations in soil fungal communities through Illumina MiSeq sequencing analyses of the fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), along a chronosequence (i.e., 9-, 13-, 20- and 23-year-old) of invasive Spartina alterniflora. We compared these variationswith those of bare flat in a Chinese Yellow Sea coastalwetland. Our results highlighted that the abundance of soil fungi, the number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs), species richness, and Shannon diversity indices for soil fungal communities were highest in 9-year-old S. alterniflora soil, which gradually declined along the invasion chronosequence. The relative abundance of copiotrophic Basidiomycota revealed significant decreasing tr end,while the relative abundance of oligotrophic Ascomycota gradually increased along the S. alterniflora invasion chronosequence. The relative abundance of soil saprotrophic fungi (e.g., undefined saprotrophs) was gradually reduced while symbiotic fungi (e.g., ectomycorrhizal fungi) and pathotrophic fungi (e.g., plant and animal pathogens) progressively increased along the S. alterniflora invasion chronosequence.