Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2023, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (5): 64-75.doi: 10.11978/2022226CSTR: 32234.14.2022226

• Marine Biology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Community structure, function, and molecular ecological network of fungi in the tropical seagrass Thalassia hemprichii sediment

LING Juan1,2,3,4,5(), LIANG Tongyin1,2,3,6, YUE Weizhong1, HUANG Xiaofang1,2,3,5,6, SUN Cuici1, ZHANG Jian1, ZHANG Yuhang1,2,3,6, ZHOU Weiguo1, DONG Junde1,2,3,4()   

  1. 1. CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Marine Biology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China
    2. Sanya Institute of Ocean Eco-Environmental Engineering, Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Biotechnology of Hainan Province, Sanya 572000, China
    3. Guangdong Provincial Observation and Research Station for Coastal Upwelling Ecosystem, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shantou 515041, China
    4. Tropical Marine Biological Research Station in Hainan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya 572000, China
    5. Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 5114581,China
    6. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2022-10-24 Revised:2022-12-09 Online:2023-09-10 Published:2022-12-26
  • Supported by:
    Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China(422QN440); National Natural Science Foundation of China(41676163); National Natural Science Foundation of China(42276160); National Natural Science Foundation of China(42206129); Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation(2023A1515012124); Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province of China(2021B1212050023); Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province of China(2020B1212060058)

Abstract:

Fungi are essential components of seagrass ecosystems, and they play important roles in maintaining seagrass health and nutrient cycling in the ecosystem. To elucidate the fungal community structure and their functions in seagrass sediment, we used Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing technique to investigate the fungi in sediments of tropical seagrass Thalassia hemprichii in Hainan Island and Xisha Islands, respectively. FUNGuild database was introduced to predict fungi trophic types and annotate fungi guilds. Results showed that phylum Ascomycota (relative abundance 24.30% ~ 76.20%) and Basidiomycota (relative abundance 4.98% ~ 52.24%) were the dominant phyla in the two study areas, but the relative abundance of phylum Ascomycota was significantly different between the two study areas (p < 0.05). The percentage of OTUs numbers in seagrass sediment fungi shared in the two regions was 5.15%, and their relative abundance was 31.19%. In addition, there were significant differences between the Alpha diversity index (Shannon and Phylogenetic diversity) and Beta diversity of the fungal communities of seagrass sediments in the two study areas (p < 0.05). The FUNGuild functional prediction analysis revealed that the main fungal trophic types were undetermined (relative abundance 72.11% ~ 91.92%). The trophic types of the rest fungi were Symbiotroph, Saprotroph, and Pathotroph, and these three trophic types could be further divided into 41 functional guilds. Network analysis for fungal groups based on random matrix theory (RMT) showed that the fungi network structure of seagrass T. hemprichii sediment in Hainan Island was more complex, with higher average clustering coefficients, longer average path lengths, and higher densities. These fungal communities may be more sensitive to environmental change. While the fungal communities of seagrass T. hemprichii sediment in Xisha Islands were more modulized, the fungus belonging to Class Sordariomycetes was the key taxon in the molecular ecological network. This study provides essential primary data and theoretical support for further study on the structure and function of fungi in seagrass ecosystems, microbial resource mining, and ecological applications.

Key words: seagrass ecosystem, fungi community, FUNGuild, trophic type, molecular ecological network