Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Characterization of the mycobiome of the seagrass, Zostera marina, reveals putative associations with marine chytrids

View ORCID ProfileCassandra L. Ettinger, View ORCID ProfileJonathan A. Eisen
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/735050
Cassandra L. Ettinger
1Genome Center, University of California, Davis, CA, United States
2Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Cassandra L. Ettinger
  • For correspondence: clettinger@ucdavis.edu
Jonathan A. Eisen
1Genome Center, University of California, Davis, CA, United States
2Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, United States
3Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Jonathan A. Eisen
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Seagrasses are globally distributed marine flowering plants that are foundation species in coastal ecosystems. Seagrass beds play essential roles as habitats and hatcheries, in nutrient cycling and in protecting the coastline from erosion. Although many studies have focused on seagrass ecology, only a limited number have investigated their associated fungi. In terrestrial systems, fungi can have beneficial and detrimental effects on plant fitness. However, not much is known about marine fungi and even less is known about seagrass associated fungi. Here we used culture-independent sequencing of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region to characterize the taxonomic diversity of fungi associated with the seagrass, Zostera marina. We sampled from two Z. marina beds in Bodega Bay over three time points to investigate fungal diversity within and between plants. Our results indicate that there are many fungal taxa for which a taxonomic assignment cannot be made living on and inside Z. marina leaves, roots and rhizomes and that these plant tissues harbor distinct fungal communities. The most prevalent ITS amplicon sequence variant (ASV) associated with Z. marina leaves was classified as fungal, but could not initially be assigned to a fungal phylum. We then used PCR with a primer targeting unique regions of the ITS2 region of this ASV and an existing primer for the fungal 28S rRNA gene to amplify part of the 28S rRNA gene region and link it to this ASV. Sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of the resulting partial 28S rRNA gene revealed that the organism that this ASV comes from is a member of Novel Clade SW-I in the order Lobulomycetales in the phylum Chytridiomycota. This clade includes known parasites of freshwater diatoms and algae and it is possible this chytrid is directly infecting Z. marina leaf tissues. This work highlights a need for further studies focusing on marine fungi and the potential importance of these understudied communities to the larger seagrass ecosystem.

Footnotes

  • Sample numbers updated in line 242 and where appropriate. Minor changes were made to lines 399-405 to reflect updates to supplemental tables S15, S16, S17 and S22. Supplemental RMarkdown file also updated accordingly.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted August 24, 2019.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Characterization of the mycobiome of the seagrass, Zostera marina, reveals putative associations with marine chytrids
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Characterization of the mycobiome of the seagrass, Zostera marina, reveals putative associations with marine chytrids
Cassandra L. Ettinger, Jonathan A. Eisen
bioRxiv 735050; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/735050
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Characterization of the mycobiome of the seagrass, Zostera marina, reveals putative associations with marine chytrids
Cassandra L. Ettinger, Jonathan A. Eisen
bioRxiv 735050; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/735050

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Microbiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4087)
  • Biochemistry (8762)
  • Bioengineering (6479)
  • Bioinformatics (23341)
  • Biophysics (11750)
  • Cancer Biology (9149)
  • Cell Biology (13247)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7416)
  • Ecology (11369)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15087)
  • Genetics (10399)
  • Genomics (14009)
  • Immunology (9121)
  • Microbiology (22040)
  • Molecular Biology (8779)
  • Neuroscience (47367)
  • Paleontology (350)
  • Pathology (1420)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2482)
  • Physiology (3704)
  • Plant Biology (8050)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1431)
  • Synthetic Biology (2208)
  • Systems Biology (6016)
  • Zoology (1249)