Arctic marine fungi: biomass, functional genes, and putative ecological roles

Hassett, Brandon T.; Borrego, Eli J.; Vonnahme, Tobias R.; Rämä, Teppo; Kolomiets, Michael V.; Gradinger, Rolf

doi:10.1038/s41396-019-0368-1

Cited by 69 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…We therefore suggest that ambient ergosterol concentrations in particulate organic matter could be an appropriate proxy for a major fraction of extant fungi biomass in the ocean. Indeed, ambient concentrations of ergosterol were recently used to estimate fungal biomass in Arctic waters (Hassett et al 2019). Since ergosterol is not present in basal lineages of fungi such as chytridiomycetes, which have been shown to be abundant in some marine environments (Gutiérrez et al 2016, Hassett et al 2019, specific biomarkers of different groups will be required for a better assessment of actual contribu-tion of marine fungi to microbial biomass in the ocean.…”

Section: Elemental Composition Of and Organic Compounds In Marine Funmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biochemical fingerprints of marine fungi: implications for trophic and biogeochemical studies

Gutiérrez

Vera

Srain

et al. 2020

Aquat. Microb. Ecol.

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Fungi are ubiquitous in the marine environment, but their role in carbon and nitrogen cycling in the ocean, and in particular the quantitative significance of fungal biomass to ocean biogeochemistry, has not yet been assessed. Determination of the biochemical and stable isotope composition of marine fungi can provide a basis for identifying fungal patterns in relation to other microbes and detritus, and thus allow evaluation of their contribution to the transformation of marine organic matter. We characterized the biochemical composition of 13 fungal strains isolated from distinct marine environments in the eastern South Pacific Ocean off Chile. Proteins accounted for 3 to 21% of mycelial dry weight, with notably high levels of the essential amino acids histidine, threonine, valine, lysine and leucine, as well as polyunsaturated fatty acids, ergosterol, and phosphatidylcholine. Elemental composition and energetic content of these marine-derived fungi were within the range reported for bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton and other metazoans from aquatic environments, but a distinct pattern of lipids and proteins was identified in marine planktonic fungi. These biochemical signatures, and an elemental composition indicative of a marine planktonic source, have potential applications for the assessment of fungal contribution to marine microbial biomass and organic matter reservoirs, and the cycling of carbon and nutrients.

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Section: Elemental Composition Of and Organic Compounds In Marine Funmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biochemical fingerprints of marine fungi: implications for trophic and biogeochemical studies

Gutiérrez

Vera

Srain

et al. 2020

Aquat. Microb. Ecol.

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“…There are currently between 120,000 and 143,273 accepted fungal species (Hawksworth and Lucking 2017, www.indexfungorum.org); of these, 1255 species have been recovered from the marine realm (Jones et al , 2019. Even though fungi comprise substantial quantities of biomass in the marine realm (Gutiérrez et al 2011, Bochdansky et al 2017, Hassett et al 2019, their activity is not represented in marine ecosystem models (Worden et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some research postulates that aquatic environments may be an ideal place for long distance fungal dispersal to occur (Golan and Pringle 2017). Furthermore, some fungal species that are known to exist both on land and in the marine realm can survive in seawater for at least 8 months (Hassett et al 2019). Paired with 0.13 m s −1 current velocity (Johnson and McPhaden 2001), some fungi can theoretically travel the distance between New Zealand and Antarctica.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global diversity and geography of planktonic marine fungi

et al. 2019

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Growing interest in understanding the relevance of marine fungi to food webs, biogeochemical cycling, and biological patterns necessitates establishing a context for interpreting future findings. To help establish this context, we summarize the diversity of cultured and observed marine planktonic fungi from across the world. While exploring this diversity, we discovered that only half of the known marine fungal species have a publicly available DNA locus, which we hypothesize will likely hinder accurate highthroughput sequencing classification in the future, as it does currently. Still, we reprocessed >600 high-throughput datasets and analyzed 4.9 × 10 9 sequences (4.8 × 10 9 shotgun metagenomic reads and 1.0 × 10 8 amplicon sequences) and found that every fungal phylum is represented in the global marine planktonic mycobiome; however, this mycobiome is generally predominated by three phyla: the Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Chytridiomycota. We hypothesize that these three clades are the most abundant due to a combination of evolutionary histories, as well as physical processes that aid in their dispersal. We found that environments with atypical salinity regimes (>5 standard deviations from the global mean: Red Sea, Baltic Sea, sea ice) hosted higher proportions of the Chytridiomycota, relative to open oceans that are dominated by Dikarya. The Baltic Sea and Mediterranean Sea had the highest fungal richness of all areas explored. An analysis of similarity identified significant differences between oceanographic regions. There were no latitudinal gradients of marine fungal richness and diversity observed. As more high-throughput sequencing data become available, expanding the collection of reference loci and genomes will be essential to understanding the ecology of marine fungi.

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“…In turn, bacteria are a relevant food source to the benthos and their standing stock is relatively invariant because it is controlled by grazing. Even though still largely overlooked, marine fungi are additional contributors to the benthic microbial food web (Morales et al, 2019), and there is increasing evidence that fungi also play a role in carbon cycling in Arctic food webs (Hassett et al, 2019). While little is known about fungal biomass in the Arctic deep-sea, sediments from 5000 m in the Indian Ocean had fungal mycelia of an estimated biomass of 7-54 µg C g −1 sediment dry weight (Damare and Raghukumar, 2008).…”

Section: Deep-sea Benthos and Its Carbon Demandmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Feeds the Benthos in the Arctic Basins? Assembling a Carbon Budget for the Deep Arctic Ocean

et al. 2020

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Half of the Arctic Ocean is deep sea (>1000 m), and this area is currently transitioning from being permanently ice-covered to being seasonally ice-free. Despite these drastic changes, it remains unclear how organisms are distributed in the deep Arctic basins, and particularly what feeds them. Here, we summarize data on auto-and heterotrophic organisms in the benthic, pelagic, and sympagic realm of the Arctic Ocean basins from the past three decades and put together an organic carbon budget for this region. Based on the budget, we investigate whether our current understanding of primary and secondary production and vertical carbon flux are balanced by the current estimates of the carbon demand by deep-sea benthos. At first glance, our budget identifies a mismatch between the carbon supply by primary production (3-46 g C m −2 yr −1), the carbon demand of organisms living in the pelagic (7-17 g C m −2) and the benthic realm (< 5 g C m −2 yr −1) versus the low vertical carbon export (at 200 m: 0.1-1.5 g C m −2 yr −1 , at 3000-4000 m: 0.01-0.73 g C m −2 yr −1). To close the budget, we suggest that episodic events of large, fast sinking ice algae aggregates, export of dead zooplankton, as well as large food falls need to be quantified and included. This work emphasizes the clear need for a better understanding of the quantity, phenology, and the regionality of carbon supply and demand in the deep Arctic basins, which will allow us to evaluate how the ecosystem may change in the future.

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Arctic marine fungi: biomass, functional genes, and putative ecological roles

Cited by 69 publications

References 65 publications

Biochemical fingerprints of marine fungi: implications for trophic and biogeochemical studies

Biochemical fingerprints of marine fungi: implications for trophic and biogeochemical studies

Global diversity and geography of planktonic marine fungi

What Feeds the Benthos in the Arctic Basins? Assembling a Carbon Budget for the Deep Arctic Ocean

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