Diversity and distribution of lichenassociated fungi in the Ny-Ålesund Region (Svalbard, High Arctic) as revealed by 454 pyrosequencing
- Author:
- Zhang T., Wei X.-L., Zhang Y.-Q., Liu H.-Y. & Yu L.-Y.
- Year:
- 2015
- Journal:
- Scientific Reports
- Pages:
- 5: 14850 [10 p.]
- Url:
This study assessed the diversity and distribution of fungal communities associated with seven
lichen species in the Ny-Ålesund Region (Svalbard, High Arctic) using Roche 454 pyrosequencing
with fungal-specific primers targeting the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal
rRNA gene. Lichen-associated fungal communities showed high diversity, with a total of 42,259 reads
belonging to 370 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being found. Of these OTUs, 294 belonged
to Ascomycota, 54 to Basidiomycota, 2 to Zygomycota, and 20 to unknown fungi. Leotiomycetes,
Dothideomycetes, and Eurotiomycetes were the major classes, whereas the dominant orders were
Helotiales, Capnodiales, and Chaetothyriales. Interestingly, most fungal OTUs were closely related to
fungi from various habitats (e.g., soil, rock, plant tissues) in the Arctic, Antarctic and alpine regions,
which suggests that living in association with lichen thalli may be a transient stage of life cycle for
these fungi and that long-distance dispersal may be important to the fungi in the Arctic. In addition,
host-related factors shaped the lichen-associated fungal communities in this region. Taken together,
these results suggest that lichens thalli act as reservoirs of diverse fungi from various niches, which
may improve our understanding of fungal evolution and ecology in the Arctic.
- Id:
- 26316
- Submitter:
- zdenek
- Post_time:
- Wednesday, 09 March 2016 23:19