Niche and ecosystem preference of earliest diverging fungi in soils

Jiarui Yang; Juanli Yun; Xingzhong Liu; Wenbin Du; Meichun Xiang

doi:10.1080/21501203.2023.2237047

Niche and ecosystem preference of earliest diverging fungi in soils

Mycology. 2023 Aug 2;14(3):239-255. doi: 10.1080/21501203.2023.2237047. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jiarui Yang^{1

2

3}, Juanli Yun^{2

4}, Xingzhong Liu^{1

3

5}, Wenbin Du^{2

4}, Meichun Xiang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ College of Life Sciences, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, China.
⁵ Department of Microbiology, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.

Abstract

Within the supergroup Rotosphaeromycetes, or "Holomycota"/"Nucletmycea", there are several well-recognised unicellular clades in the earliest diverging fungi (EDF). However, we know little about their occurrence. Here, we investigated EDF in the rhizosphere and bulk soils from cropland, forest, orchard, and wetland ecosystems around the Beijing-Hebei area, China, to illustrate their niche and ecosystem preference. More than 500 new operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of EDF were detected based on the 18S rRNA genes. Microsporida and Aphelida constitute dominant groups, whereas Rozellosporida was quite rare. Although the EDF community was site-specific, the soil chemical characteristics, vegetation, and other eukaryotic microorganisms were the key factors driving the occurrence of EDF. Moreover, the stochastic process consisted the most of the EDF community assembly.

Keywords: Aphelida; Microsporida; Rozellosporida; community; earliest diverging fungi; ecological distribution; occurrence; rhizosphere; soil.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41977196).