Diversity, distribution and ecology of fungal communities present in Antarctic lake sediments uncovered by DNA metabarcoding

Abstract We assessed fungal diversity in sediments obtained from four lakes in the South Shetland Islands and James Ross Island, Antarctica, using DNA metabarcoding. We detected 218 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) dominated by the phyla Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Mortierellomycota, Mucoromycota an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Láuren Machado Drumond de Souza, Juan Manuel Lirio, Silvia Herminda Coria, Fabyano Alvares Cardoso Lopes, Peter Convey, Micheline Carvalho-Silva, Fábio Soares de Oliveira, Carlos Augusto Rosa, Paulo Eduardo Aguiar Saraiva Câmara, Luiz Henrique Rosa
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2022
Subjects:
Medicine
R
Science
Q
Antarctic
South Shetland Islands
Ross Island
Deception Island
Four Lakes
Antarc*
Antarctica
James Ross Island
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12290-6
https://doaj.org/article/08ba8de50c9143e88cd45b92e334c724
Description
Summary:Abstract We assessed fungal diversity in sediments obtained from four lakes in the South Shetland Islands and James Ross Island, Antarctica, using DNA metabarcoding. We detected 218 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) dominated by the phyla Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Mortierellomycota, Mucoromycota and Chytridiomycota. In addition, the rare phyla Aphelidiomycota, Basidiobolomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Monoblepharomycota, Rozellomycota and Zoopagomycota as well as fungal-like Straminopila belonging to the phyla Bacillariophyta and Oomycota were detected. The fungal assemblages were dominated by unknown fungal taxa (Fungal sp. 1 and Fungal sp. 2), followed by Talaromyces rubicundus and Dactylonectria anthuriicola. In general, they displayed high diversity, richness and moderate dominance. Sequences representing saprophytic, pathogenic and symbiotic fungi were detected, including the phytopathogenic fungus D. anthuriicola that was abundant, in the relatively young Soto Lake on Deception Island. The lake sediments studied contained the DNA of rich, diverse and complex fungal communities, including both fungi commonly reported in Antarctica and other taxa considered to be rare. However, as the study was based on the use of environmental DNA, which does not unequivocally confirm the presence of active or viable organisms, further studies using other approaches such as shotgun sequencing are required to elucidate the ecology of fungi in these Antarctic lake sediments.

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