title: Temperate pine barrens and tropical rain forests are both rich in undescribed fungi.
abstract: Most of fungal biodiversity on Earth remains unknown especially in the unexplored habitats. In this study, we compared fungi associated with grass (Poaceae) roots from two ecosystems: the temperate pine barrens in New Jersey, USA and tropical rain forests in Yunnan, China, using the same sampling, isolation and species identification methods. A total of 426 fungal isolates were obtained from 1600 root segments from 80 grass samples. Based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences and morphological characteristics, a total of 85 fungal species (OTUs) belonging in 45 genera, 23 families, 16 orders, and 6 classes were identified, among which the pine barrens had 38 and Yunnan had 56 species, with only 9 species in common. The finding that grass roots in the tropical forests harbor higher fungal species diversity supports that tropical forests are fungal biodiversity hotspots. Sordariomycetes was dominant in both places but more Leotiomycetes were found in the pine barrens than Yunnan, which may play a role in the acidic and oligotrophic pine barrens ecosystem. Equal number of undescribed fungal species were discovered from the two sampled ecosystems, although the tropical Yunnan had more known fungal species. Pine barrens is a unique, unexplored ecosystem. Our finding suggests that sampling plants in such unexplored habitats will uncover novel fungi and that grass roots in pine barrens are one of the major reservoirs of novel fungi with about 47% being undescribed species.
authors: Department of Plant Biology & Pathology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors: Jing
authors: J
authors: Luo
authors: Department of Plant Biology & Pathology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors: Emily
authors: E
authors: Walsh
authors: Department of Plant Biology & Pathology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors: Abhishek
authors: A
authors: Naik
authors: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors: Wenying
authors: W
authors: Zhuang
authors: Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-Resources and Key Laboratory for Microbial Resources of the Ministry of Education, Yunnan University, Kunming, China.
authors: Keqin
authors: K
authors: Zhang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Cai
authors: Department of Plant Biology & Pathology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America; Department of Biochemistry & Microbiology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors: Ning
authors: N
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001203:Ascomycota / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D044822:Biodiversity; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000032:analysis / Q000302:isolation & purification; D017753:Ecosystem; D065928:Forests; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D010802:Phylogeny; D028223:Pinus / Q000382:microbiology*; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000382:microbiology; D006109:Poaceae / Q000382:microbiology; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal