Marine Science and Technical College, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan, China.
Technology Innovation Center for Exploitation of Marine Biological Resources, MNR, Xiamen, China.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2022 May;106(9-10):3787-3798. doi: 10.1007/s00253-022-11949-4. Epub 2022 May 11.
The fungal communities provide the nutrients and drive the cycles of elements in nature, and the rare fungal taxa are proved to be crucial for these communities in many environments. However, the ecological functions of rare taxa for the fungal communities in mangrove ecosystems are poorly assessed until now. This work aims to reveal the importance of rare taxa for the assembly of fungal communities in mangrove sediments by using the amplicon sequencing analysis of different spatiotemporal samples collected from Sanya mangroves, China. The results showed that Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the dominant phyla in the conditionally rare taxa (CRT). The fungal communities possessed outstanding stability against the spatiotemporal variation and most collected environmental factors. The CRT possessed narrower niches and were more affected by the environmental variables than the abundant taxa. The current work demonstrated that the CRT had significantly higher relative abundances, degrees (the number of adjacent edges), clustering coefficients, and closeness centralities in the top 8 modules of the co-occurrence network (p < 0.05), indicating the important role of the CRT for the interaction of fungal communities in mangrove sediments. These findings indicate the importance of the CRT for the fungal community structures in mangrove sediments, and would deepen our understanding of dynamic functions of mangrove fungi, thereby facilitating the management, utilization, and protection of mangrove ecosystems. KEY POINTS: • Fungal communities in mangrove sediments are stable against environment variations. • The conditionally rare taxa (CRT) possessed narrower niches than the abundant fungal taxa. • The CRT are central for the co-occurrence network and interaction of fungal communities.
真菌群落为自然界中的元素提供养分并驱动其循环，已证实稀有真菌分类群在许多环境中对这些群落至关重要。然而，到目前为止，稀有分类群对红树林生态系统中真菌群落的生态功能仍未得到充分评估。本研究旨在通过对中国三亚红树林不同时空样本的扩增子测序分析，揭示稀有分类群对红树林沉积物中真菌群落组装的重要性。结果表明，子囊菌门和担子菌门是条件稀有分类群（CRT）中的主要类群。真菌群落对时空变化和大多数采集的环境因素具有出色的稳定性。CRT 的生态位较窄，比丰富分类群更容易受到环境变量的影响。本研究表明，CRT 在共生网络的前 8 个模块中具有显著更高的相对丰度、度数（相邻边缘的数量）、聚类系数和接近中心度（p<0.05），表明 CRT 对红树林沉积物中真菌群落的相互作用具有重要作用。这些发现表明 CRT 对红树林沉积物中真菌群落结构的重要性，将加深我们对红树林真菌动态功能的理解，从而有助于红树林生态系统的管理、利用和保护。关键点：• 红树林沉积物中的真菌群落对环境变化具有稳定性。• 条件稀有分类群（CRT）的生态位比丰富的真菌分类群更窄。• CRT 是共生网络和真菌群落相互作用的核心。
