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Cryptic fungal diversity revealed by DNA metabarcoding in historic wooden structures at Whalers Bay, Deception Island, maritime Antarctic

  • Environmental Microbiology - Research Paper
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Abstract

We provide the first assessment of fungal diversity associated with historic wooden structures at Whalers Bay (Heritage Monument 71), Deception Island, maritime Antarctic, using DNA metabarcoding. We detected a total of 177 fungal amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) dominated by the phyla Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Mortierellomycota, Chytridiomycota, Monoblepharomycota, Rozellomycota, and Zoopagomycota. The assemblages were dominated by Helotiales sp. 1 and Herpotrichiellaceae sp. 1. Functional assignments indicated that the taxa detected were dominated by saprotrophic, plant and animal pathogenic, and symbiotic taxa. Metabarcoding revealed the presence of a rich and complex fungal community, which may be due to the wooden structures acting as baits attracting taxa to niches sheltered against extreme conditions, generating a hotspot for fungi in Antarctica. The sequences assigned included both cosmopolitan and endemic taxa, as well as potentially unreported diversity. The detection of DNA assigned to taxa of human and animal opportunistic pathogens raises a potential concern as Whalers Bay is one of the most popular visitor sites in Antarctica. The use of metabarcoding to detect DNA present in environmental samples does not confirm the presence of viable or metabolically active fungi and further studies using different culturing conditions and media, different growth temperatures and incubation periods, in combination with further molecular approaches such as shotgun sequencing are now required to clarify the functional ecology of these fungi.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files. All raw sequences have been deposited in the NCBI database under the codes SAMN29145234, SAMN29145235, SAMN29145236, SAMN29145237, SAMN29145238, SAMN29145239, SAMN29145240, SAMN29145241, SAMN29145242, and SAMN29145243.

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Funding

This study received financial support from CNPq, CAPES, FNDCT, FAPEMIG, FAPT, and PROANTAR. P. Convey is supported by NERC core funding to the British Antarctic Survey’s “Biodiversity, Evolution and Adaptation” Team.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Microbiologia Polar E Conexões Tropicais, Departamento de Microbiologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, P. O. Box 486, Belo Horizonte, MG, CEP, 31270-901, Brasil

    Láuren Machado Drumond de Souza, Elisa Amorim Amâncio Teixeira, Lívia da Costa Coelho & Luiz Henrique Rosa

  2. Laboratório de Microbiologia, Universidade Federal Do Tocantins, Porto Nacional, Brasil

    Fabyano Alvares Cardoso Lopes

  3. British Antarctic Survey, NERC, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET, UK

    Peter Convey

  4. Department of Zoology, University of Johannesburg, PO Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa

    Peter Convey

  5. Departamento de Botânica, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Brasil

    Micheline Carvalho-Silva & Paulo Eduardo Aguiar Saraiva Câmara

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  1. Láuren Machado Drumond de Souza
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Contributions

LMDS, EAAT, LCC, LHR, MCS, and PEASC conceived the study. LCC and LHR collected the samples. LMDS, EAAT, LHR, and PEASC performed DNA extraction from lake sediments. FACL performed the metabarcoding analysis. LMDS, EAAT, LCC, PEASC, FACL, PC, MCS, and LHR analyzed the results and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luiz Henrique Rosa.

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The collections performed in Whalers Bay (Heritage Monument 71) were authorized under permit issued by PROANTAR.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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de Souza, L.M.D., Teixeira, E.A.A., da Costa Coelho, L. et al. Cryptic fungal diversity revealed by DNA metabarcoding in historic wooden structures at Whalers Bay, Deception Island, maritime Antarctic. Braz J Microbiol 54, 213–222 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42770-022-00869-0

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