The Horizontal and Vertical Distribution of Deep-Sea Sediments Fungal Community in the South China Sea

Although diverse fungi have been found in the deep-sea habitats, the space distribution of fungi has not been well characterized. In this study, the fungal horizontal and vertical distribution of the deep-sea sediments, four locations, three depths each, in the South China Sea, were compared using ITS2 high-throughput sequencing. It was revealed that the South China Sea deep-sea sediments harbor diverse marine fungi, including 82.39% Ascomycota, 8.10% Basidiomycota, 0.55% Zygomycota and 8.96% unknown fungi. The results indicate that fungal community structure is not uniform among the different sediment habitats. Though surface sediments have similar fungal diversity across the 4 locations, the fungal abundance and diversity increase with the depth of the sediments from 0 to 2 m, and 1 and 2 m deep sediments show obvious location-dependent fungal community structure. This is the first time to compare the horizontal and vertical distribution of fungal community among different deep-sea sediments in the South China Sea by high-throughput sequencing, providing novel insights into the space distribution characteristics of deep-sea sediments fungi.