title: Fungal communities from the calcareous deep-sea sediments in the Southwest India Ridge revealed by Illumina sequencing technology.
abstract: The diversity and ecological significance of bacteria and archaea in deep-sea environments have been thoroughly investigated, but eukaryotic microorganisms in these areas, such as fungi, are poorly understood. To elucidate fungal diversity in calcareous deep-sea sediments in the Southwest India Ridge (SWIR), the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of rRNA genes from two sediment metagenomic DNA samples were amplified and sequenced using the Illumina sequencing platform. The results revealed that 58-63 % and 36-42 % of the ITS sequences (97 % similarity) belonged to Basidiomycota and Ascomycota, respectively. These findings suggest that Basidiomycota and Ascomycota are the predominant fungal phyla in the two samples. We also found that Agaricomycetes, Leotiomycetes, and Pezizomycetes were the major fungal classes in the two samples. At the species level, Thelephoraceae sp. and Phialocephala fortinii were major fungal species in the two samples. Despite the low relative abundance, unidentified fungal sequences were also observed in the two samples. Furthermore, we found that there were slight differences in fungal diversity between the two sediment samples, although both were collected from the SWIR. Thus, our results demonstrate that calcareous deep-sea sediments in the SWIR harbor diverse fungi, which augment the fungal groups in deep-sea sediments. This is the first report of fungal communities in calcareous deep-sea sediments in the SWIR revealed by Illumina sequencing.
authors.affiliation: Marine Science and Technology Institute, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, No. 196 Huayang West Road, Hanjiang District, Yangzhou, 225127, Jiangsu, China. lkzhang@yzu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Likui
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Marine Science and Technology Institute, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, No. 196 Huayang West Road, Hanjiang District, Yangzhou, 225127, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Manyu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Marine Science and Technology Institute, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, No. 196 Huayang West Road, Hanjiang District, Yangzhou, 225127, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Yangchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Marine Science and Technology Institute, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, No. 196 Huayang West Road, Hanjiang District, Yangzhou, 225127, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Lixiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer / Q000235:genetics; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000382:microbiology*; D007194:India; D010802:Phylogeny; D012623:Seawater / Q000382:microbiology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer
keywords: Calcareous deep-sea sediments; Fungal diversity; Illumina sequencing; Internal transcribed spacer; Metagenomic DNA