Varrella Stefano, Barone Giulio, Corinaldesi Cinzia, Giorgetti Alessio, Nomaki Hidetaka, Nunoura Takuro, Rastelli Eugenio, Tangherlini Michael, Danovaro Roberto, Dell'Anno Antonio
Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy.
National Biodiversity Future Centre, 90133 Palermo, Italy.
J Fungi (Basel). 2024 Jan 16;10(1):73. doi: 10.3390/jof10010073.
Hadal trenches host abundant and diversified benthic prokaryotic assemblages, but information on benthic fungi is still extremely limited. We investigated the fungal abundance and diversity in the Challenger Deep (at ca. 11,000 m depth) and the slope of the Mariana Trench in comparison with three sites of the adjacent abyssal plain. Our results indicate that trench sediments are a hotspot of fungal abundance in terms of the 18S rRNA gene copy number. The fungal diversity (as the number of amplicon sequence variants, ASVs) was relatively low at all sites (10-31 ASVs) but showed a high turnover diversity among stations due to the presence of exclusive fungal taxa belonging to , , and . Fungal abundance and diversity were closely linked to sediment organic matter content and composition (i.e., phytopigments and carbohydrates), suggesting a specialization of different fungal taxa for the exploitation of available resources. Overall, these findings provide new insights into the diversity of deep-sea fungi and the potential ecological role in trench sediments and pave the way for a better understanding of their relevance in one of the most extreme ecosystems on Earth.
超深渊海沟拥有丰富多样的底栖原核生物群落，但关于底栖真菌的信息仍然极为有限。我们调查了马里亚纳海沟挑战者深渊（约11000米深度）和海沟斜坡处的真菌丰度和多样性，并与相邻深海平原的三个地点进行了比较。我们的结果表明，就18S rRNA基因拷贝数而言，海沟沉积物是真菌丰度的热点区域。所有地点的真菌多样性（以扩增子序列变体数量，即ASVs计）相对较低（10 - 31个ASVs），但由于存在属于、和的独特真菌类群，各站点间的周转多样性较高。真菌丰度和多样性与沉积物有机质含量及组成（即植物色素和碳水化合物）密切相关，这表明不同真菌类群在利用可用资源方面具有特异性。总体而言，这些发现为深海真菌的多样性及其在海沟沉积物中的潜在生态作用提供了新的见解，并为更好地理解它们在地球上最极端生态系统之一中的相关性铺平了道路。
