TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rojas-Jimenez, Keilor
A1  - Grossart, Hans-Peter
A1  - Cordes, Erik
A1  - Cortés, Jorge
T1  - Fungal Communities in Sediments Along a Depth Gradient in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
JF  - Frontiers in Microbiology
N2  - Deep waters represent the largest biome on Earth and the largest ecosystem of Costa Rica. Fungi play a fundamental role in global biogeochemical cycling in marine sediments, yet, they remain little explored. We studied fungal diversity and community composition in several marine sediments from 16 locations sampled along a bathymetric gradient (from a depth of 380 to 3,474 m) in two transects of about 1,500 km length in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) of Costa Rica. Sequence analysis of the V7-V8 region of the 18S rRNA gene obtained from sediment cores revealed the presence of 787 fungal amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). On average, we detected a richness of 75 fungal ASVs per sample. Ascomycota represented the most abundant phylum with Saccharomycetes constituting the dominant class. Three ASVs accounted for ca. 63% of all fungal sequences: the yeast Metschnikowia (49.4%), Rhizophydium (6.9%), and Cladosporium (6.7%). We distinguished a cluster composed mainly by yeasts, and a second cluster by filamentous fungi, but we were unable to detect a strong effect of depth and the overlying water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen (DO), and pH on the composition of fungal communities. We highlight the need to understand further the ecological role of fungi in deep-sea ecosystems.
KW  - deep-sea
KW  - aquatic fungi
KW  - biodiversity
KW  - Metschnikowia
KW  - Costa Rica
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.575207
SN  - 1664-302X
VL  - 11
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -