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Diversity and Distribution of Aquatic Fungal Communities in the Ny-Ålesund Region, Svalbard (High Arctic)

Aquatic Fungi in the Arctic

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
  • Published:
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Abstract

We assessed the diversity and distribution of fungi in 13 water samples collected from four aquatic environments (stream, pond, melting ice water, and estuary) in the Ny-Ålesund Region, Svalbard (High Arctic) using 454 pyrosequencing with fungi-specific primers targeting the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal rRNA gene. Aquatic fungal communities in this region showed high diversity, with a total of 43,061 reads belonging to 641 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being found. Of these OTUs, 200 belonged to Ascomycota, 196 to Chytridiomycota, 120 to Basidiomycota, 13 to Glomeromycota, and 10 to early diverging fungal lineages (traditional Zygomycota), whereas 102 belonged to unknown fungi. The major orders were Helotiales, Eurotiales, and Pleosporales in Ascomycota; Chytridiales and Rhizophydiales in Chytridiomycota; and Leucosporidiales and Sporidiobolales in Basidiomycota. The common fungal genera Penicillium, Rhodotorula, Epicoccum, Glaciozyma, Holtermanniella, Betamyces, and Phoma were identified. Interestingly, the four aquatic environments in this region harbored different aquatic fungal communities. Salinity, conductivity, and temperature were important factors in determining the aquatic fungal diversity and community composition. The results suggest the presence of diverse fungal communities and a considerable number of potentially novel fungal species in Arctic aquatic environments, which can provide reliable data for studying the ecological and evolutionary responses of fungi to climate change in the Arctic ecosystem.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Infrastructure of Microbial Resources (No.NIMR-2015-3), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 31170041 and 31300115), the Polar Strategic Research Foundation of China (No. 20120302), and Projects of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, State Oceanic Administration (Nos. 2013YR06006 and 2013YR05005). Li-Yan Yu is supported by Xiehe scholarship.

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  1. China Pharmaceutical Culture Collection, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100050, People’s Republic of China

    Tao Zhang, Yu-Qin Zhang, Hong-Yu Liu & Li-Yan Yu

  2. Key Lab of Marine Bioactive Substances, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao, 266061, People’s Republic of China

    Neng-Fei Wang

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  1. Tao Zhang
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Correspondence to Li-Yan Yu.

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Zhang, T., Wang, NF., Zhang, YQ. et al. Diversity and Distribution of Aquatic Fungal Communities in the Ny-Ålesund Region, Svalbard (High Arctic). Microb Ecol 71, 543–554 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-015-0689-1

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