Abstract
SummaryOur understanding of the diversity and community dynamics of soil fungi has increased greatly through the use of DNA‐based identification. Community characterization of metabolically active communities via RNA sequencing has previously revealed differences between ‘active’ and ‘total’ fungal communities, which may be influenced by the persistence of DNA from nonactive components. However, it is not known how fungal traits influence their prevalence in these contrasting community profiles. In this study, we coextracted DNA and RNA from soil collected from three Antarctic islands to test for differences between total and active soil fungal communities. By matching these geographically isolated fungi against a global dataset of soil fungi, we show that widely dispersed taxa are often more abundant in the total community, whilst taxa restricted to Antarctica are more likely to have higher abundance in the active community. In addition, we find that active communities have lower richness, and show a reduction in the abundance of the most dominant fungi, whilst there are consistent differences in the abundances of certain taxonomic groups between the total and active communities. These results suggest that the views of soil fungal communities offered by DNA‐ and RNA‐based characterization differ in predictable ways.
Highlights
IntroductionSoil fungal community composition can be determined through sequencing of the precursor rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, a much shorter-lived molecule than DNA, which is present predominantly in metabolically active tissue (Anderson and Parkin, 2007)
Soil fungi have pivotal roles in terrestrial ecosystems as decomposers, pathogens and partners in mycorrhizal andSoil fungal community composition can be determined through sequencing of the precursor rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, a much shorter-lived molecule than DNA, which is present predominantly in metabolically active tissue (Anderson and Parkin, 2007)
The data reported here indicate that endemic Antarctic fungal taxa exhibited higher abundances in the active than in the total community of Antarctic soils, and, vice versa, that cosmopolitan soil fungi were more likely to occur in the total than in the active community
Summary
Soil fungal community composition can be determined through sequencing of the precursor rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, a much shorter-lived molecule than DNA, which is present predominantly in metabolically active tissue (Anderson and Parkin, 2007) Whilst this technique has been used in relatively few studies focused on fungi, it has been shown that a soil’s ‘active’ fungal community (i.e., that derived from its RNA profile) may have lower richness than the community measured through DNA-based analyses, and certain taxa may show markedly different abundances (Taylor et al, 2010; Rajala et al, 2011; Baldrian et al, 2012; van der Linde et al, 2012; Romanowicz et al, 2016). Robinson select for generalist species capable of growing on artificial media under laboratory conditions (Bridge and Spooner, 2001)
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