Fungal Community in Antarctic Soil Along the Retreating Collins Glacier (Fildes Peninsula, King George Island)

Abstract

Glacial retreat is one of the most conspicuous signs of warming in Antarctic regions. Glacier soils harbor an active microbial community of decomposers, and under the continuous retraction of glaciers, the soil starts to present a gradient of physical, chemical, and biological factors reflecting regional changes over time. Little is known about the biological nature of fungi in Antarctic glacier soils. In this sense, this work aimed at studying the behavior of fungal community structure from samples of glacier soil collected after glacial retreat (Collins Glacier). A total of 309 fungi distributed in 19 genera were obtained from eleven soil samples. Representatives of the genera Pseudogymnoascus (Ascomycota) and Mortierella (Mortierellomycota) were the most abundant isolates in all samples. The data revealed the presence of filamentous fungi belonging to the phylum Basidiomycota, rarely found in Antarctica. Analysis of the generalized linear models revealed that the distance from the glacier as well as phosphorus and clay were able to modify the distribution of fungal species. Environmental variations proved to have influenced the genera Pseudogymnoascus and Pseudeutorium.

Soil Fungal Diversity of the Aguarongo Andean Forest (Ecuador)

“…Together with Ascomycota , the most abundant phylum in our study was Mortierellomycota . Its high abundance was expected, as this result has been recorded in other studies on the mycobiota of soil in high altitude environments [ 44 , 46 ] or from extreme environments such as the Alps [ 49 ] or Antarctica [ 50 , 51 , 52 ]. Surprisingly, in the Aguarongo forest, the abundance of Mortierellomycota is similar to that of Ascomycota .…”

Diversity, Ecological Role and Biotechnological Potential of Antarctic Marine Fungi

“…Nonetheless, fungal diversity in marine sediments also include many other genera found in other Antarctic habitats, such as Penicillium , Metschnikowia , Rhodotorula, Cladosporium and Glaciozyma ( Figure 2 ). The genus Pseudogymnoascus genus found in Antarctic sediments has been also recorded in other cold environments including polar regions and glaciers [ 27 , 49 , 62 , 63 ], and the genus Phaeosphaeria , whose members include plant pathogens, has been also found in association with the Antarctic macroalgae Adenocystis utricularis [ 64 , 65 ].…”

Sesquiterpenoids From the Antarctic Fungus Pseudogymnoascus sp. HSX2#-11

“…The genus Pseudogymnoascus as a kind of psychrophilic pathogenic fungi is widely distributed in Antarctica (Rosa et al, 2020;Santos et al, 2020;Martorell et al, 2021). Pseudogymnoascus can be one of the antagonistic fungi against potato scab pathogens from potato field soils, which could be used as potential agents to control potato scab disease (Tagawa et al, 2010).…”

“…It has been proved that Antarctic microorganisms, especially fungi, have the potential capacity to produce novel secondary metabolites to adapt to the harsh environments (Kwon et al, 2017;Rusman et al, 2018;Yu et al, 2019;. Pseudogymnoascus are known as a kind of psychrophilic pathogenic fungi with ubiquitous distribution in Antarctica (Rosa et al, 2020;Santos et al, 2020;Martorell et al, 2021). These fungal strains have been proved to have the abilities to produce cold-adapted enzymes to adapt severe cold Antarctic environment (Loperena et al, 2012;Poveda et al, 2018).…”