title: Distribution and diversity of planktonic fungi in the West Pacific Warm Pool.
abstract: Fungi contribute substantially to biogeochemical cycles of terrestrial and marine habitats by decomposing matter and recycling nutrients. Yet, the diversity of their planktonic forms in the open ocean is poorly described. In this study, culture-independent and molecular approaches were applied to investigate fungal diversity and abundance derived from samples collected from a broad swath of the Pacific Warm Pool across major environmental gradients Our results revealed that planktonic fungi were molecularly diverse and their diversity patterns were related to major phytoplankton taxa and various nutrients including nitrate, nitrite, orthophosphate and silicic acid. Over 400 fungal phylotypes were recovered across this region and nearly half of them grouped into two major fungal lineages of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, whose abundance varied among stations. These results suggest that planktonic fungi are a diverse and integral component of the marine microbial community and should be included in future marine microbial ecosystem models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Deep Sea Biology, Tianjin University Center for Marine Environmental Ecology, School of Environment & Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Purnima
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, College of Life Sciences, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an, China.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Deep Sea Biology, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Xiaobo
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Marine Laboratory, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Zackary I
authors.initials: ZI
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America; Collaborative Innovation Center of Deep Sea Biology, Tianjin University Center for Marine Environmental Ecology, School of Environment & Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China; College of Engineering, California Baptist University, Riverside, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Guangyi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D001203:Ascomycota / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D001487:Basidiomycota / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D044822:Biodiversity; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015723:Gene Library; D010802:Phylogeny; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012335:RNA, Ribosomal / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012623:Seawater / Q000382:microbiology; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D012335:RNA, Ribosomal