Fungal Diversity and Community Composition across Ecosystems

Area of Science:

• Mycology
• Ecology
• Environmental Microbiology

Background:

• Fungi are crucial to Earth's biosphere but their diversity in aquatic environments is understudied.
• Existing research on fungal communities is heavily biased towards terrestrial (soil) ecosystems.
• Inconsistent methodologies, such as varying primers for fungal DNA analysis, hinder comparative studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a global assessment of fungal diversity and community composition across major ecosystems.
• To identify environmental drivers influencing fungal diversity gradients.
• To characterize the dominant fungal taxa within different ecosystems.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a large-scale 18S rRNA gene sequencing dataset.
• Analyzed samples from terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.
• Applied bioinformatics to assess fungal diversity and community structure, including amplicon sequencing variants (ASVs).

Main Results:

• Fungal diversity followed the trend: terrestrial > freshwater > marine.
• Significant diversity gradients were observed along temperature, salinity, and latitude.
• Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were dominant in most ecosystems, with Chytridiomycota prevalent in freshwater rivers.

Conclusions:

• This research provides a comprehensive global overview of fungal diversity across diverse ecosystems.
• Identified key fungal orders and ASVs specific to each environment, addressing a significant knowledge gap.
• Highlights the impact of environmental factors on shaping global mycobiomes.