Fungal diversity in permafrost and tallgrass prairie soils under experimental warming conditions

C. Ryan Penton, Derek St Louis, James R. Cole, Yiqi Luo, Liyou Wu, E. A.G. Schuur, Jizhong Zhou, James M. Tiedje

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Soil fungi play a major role in terrestrial ecosystem functioning through interactions with soil structure, plants, micro- and mesofauna, and nutrient cycling through predation, pathogenesis, mutualistic, and saprotrophic roles. The diversity of soil fungi was assessed by sequencing their 28S rRNA gene in Alaskan permafrost and Oklahoma tallgrass prairie soils at experimental sites where the effect of climate warming is under investigation. A total of 226,695 reads were classified into 1,063 genera, covering 62% of the reference data set. Using the Bayesian Classifier offered by the Ribosomal Database Project (RDP) with 50% bootstrapping classification confidence, approximately 70% of sequences were returned as "unclassified" at the genus level, although the majority (~65%) were classified at the class level, which provided insight into these lesser-known fungal lineages. Those unclassified at the genus level were subjected to BLAST analysis against the ARB-SILVA database, where~50% most closely matched nonfungal taxa. Compared to the more abundant sequences, a higher proportion of rare operational taxonomic units (OTU) were successfully classified to genera at 50% bootstrap confidence, indicating that the fungal rare biosphere in these sites is not composed of sequencing artifacts. There was no significant effect after 1 year of warming on the fungal community structure at both sites, except perhaps for a few minor members, but there was a significant effect of sample depth in the permafrost soils. Despite overall significant community structure differences driven by variations in OTU dominance, the prairie and permafrost soils shared 90% and 63% of all fungal sequences, respectively, indicating a fungal "seed bank" common between both sites.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)7063-7072
Number of pages10
JournalApplied and Environmental Microbiology
Volume79
Issue number22
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2013
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biotechnology
  • Food Science
  • Ecology
  • Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

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