A High-Level Fungal Diversity in the Intertidal Sediment of Chinese Seas Presents the Spatial Variation of Community Composition

Abstract

The intertidal region is one of the most dynamic environments in the biosphere, which potentially supports vast biodiversity. Fungi have been found to play important roles in marine ecosystems, e.g., as parasites or symbionts of plants and animals, and as decomposers of organic materials. The fungal diversity in intertidal region, however, remains poorly understood. In this study, sediment samples from various intertidal habitats of Chinese seas were collected and investigated for determination of fungal community and spatial distribution. Through ribosomal RNA internal transcribed spacer-2 (ITS2) metabarcoding, a high-level fungal diversity was revealed, as represented by 6,013 OTUs that spanned six phyla, 23 classes, 84 orders and 526 genera. The presence of typical decomposers (e.g., Corollospora in Ascomycota and Lepiota in Basidiomycota) and pathogens (e.g., Olpidium in Chytriomycota, Actinomucor in Zygomycota and unidentified Rozellomycota spp.), and even mycorrhizal fungi (e.g., Glomus in Glomeromycota) indicated a complicated origin of intertidal fungi. Interestingly, a small proportion of sequences were classified to obligate marine fungi (e.g., Corollospora, Lignincola, Remispora, Sigmoidea). Our data also showed that the East China Sea significantly differed from other regions in terms of species richness and community composition, indicating a profound effect of the huge discharge of the Yangtze River. No significant difference in fungal communities was detected, however, among habitat types (i.e., aquaculture, dock, plant, river mouth and tourism). These observations raise further questions on adaptation of these members to environments and the ecological functions they probably perform.

Highlighting patterns of fungal diversity and composition shaped by ocean currents using the East China Sea as a model

“…Some members of these two phyla were found to be decomposers of pollen and leaves in marine habitats (Phuphumirat, Ferguson, & Gleason, ) or pathogens infecting marine algae and animals (Scholz, Küpper, Vyverman, & Karsten, ), suggesting a wide array of ecological roles potentially performed by these fungi in the ECS. Interestingly, among the five mycorrhizal genera in Glomeromycota detected in this study, four of them (i.e., Ambispora , Diversispora, Funneliformis and Glomus ) were previously found in intertidal sediments in Chinese seas (Li, Wang, Bian et al., ). Diversispora and Glomus were also retrieved from deep subseafloor sediments (Orsi, Biddle, & Edgcomb, ).…”

“…Along the ECS coast, several rivers (e.g., the Yangtze and Qiantang rivers) discharge massive amounts of freshwater and sediment into the local ocean; for example, the Yangtze River discharges approximately 4.7–5.0 × 10 8 tons of sediment per year (Song, ). Some terrestrial or freshwater fungi in water and sediment were presumed to enrich the intertidal regions of the ECS and probably contribute to the large difference in fungal communities between the ECS and other sea regions of China (Li, Wang, Bian et al., ). In this study, we found that river run‐off markedly affects the water community structure, as highlighted by the dominance of the typical terrestrial fungus Byssochlamys sp.…”

“…The bioinformatic analysis was conducted as described in Tedersoo et al. (, ) and Li, Wang, Bian, Guo, and Cai (). Briefly, raw sequences were paired using flash (maximum mismatch ratio = 0.1, minimum overlap = 10 bp; Magoč & Salzberg, ) and quality‐filtered using the QIIME pipeline with the following options: ‐q = 30, ‐r = 3 and ‐p = 0.75 (Caporaso et al., ).…”

Environmental Filtering Drives the Assembly of Habitat Generalists and Specialists in the Coastal Sand Microbial Communities of Southern China

“…Therefore, sand microbial assemblages have been proposed as a sensitive bio-indicator for evaluating the environmental health of coastal habitats [10,12]. In this regard, geographic distance has also been found to play a certain role in controlling the spatial distribution of sand microbial assemblages, suggesting that dispersal limitations may affect sand microbial communities as well [8,13]. In addition, disturbances like wave-or tidal-action may lead to the random dispersal of microbes between seawater and intertidal sands, or across the unsaturated zone of beach aquifers [2,14,15].…”

Silicate Fertilizer Amendment Alters Fungal Communities and Accelerates Soil Organic Matter Decomposition

“…PCR amplification was performed in a total volume of 50 µL reaction mixture containing 10 ng of template DNA, 10 × AccuPrime PCR buffer II (including dNTPs) (Invitrogen, United States), 0.2 U AccuPrime High Fidelity Taq Polymerase, and 0.4 mM of both forward and reverse primers. The primer pair used to amplify fungi was ITS3/ITS4 (Li et al, 2016). The paired Illumina adaptors were linked to the 5 end of the forward and reverse primers.…”