Abstract
The fungal communities of different soil compartments in mangrove ecosystem are poorly studied. We sequenced the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions to characterize the fungal communities in Avicennia marina root-associated soils (rhizosphere and pneumatophore) and bulk soil compartments. The rhizosphere but not pneumatophore soil compartment had significantly lower fungal species richness than bulk soil. However, bulk soil fungal diversity (Shannon diversity index) was significantly higher than both pneumatophore and rhizosphere soil compartments. The different soil compartments significantly affected the fungal community composition. Pairwise sample analyses showed that bulk soil microbial community composition significantly different from rhizosphere and pneumatophore soil compartments. There was, however no significant difference observed between rhizosphere and pneumatophore soil fungal community composition and they shared relatively more OTUs between them. Further, there was a significant correlation observed between fungal community compositional changes and carbon or nitrogen availability of different soil compartments. These results suggest that few characteristics such as fungal richness and taxa abundance of rhizosphere and pneumatophore soil compartments were significantly different in mangrove ecosystem.
Highlights
Mangroves generally grow in latitudes 32°N and 38°S falling in tropical and subtropical climate regions worldwide[1]
We compared the fungal communities from bulk, pneumatophore and rhizosphere compartments
Our results showed that the different soil compartments of A. marina affect the fungal richness, diversity (Shannon) and community composition in the present mangrove ecosystem
Summary
Mangroves generally grow in latitudes 32°N and 38°S falling in tropical and subtropical climate regions worldwide[1]. The comparative studies on fungal community of root-associated (pneumatophore and rhizosphere) soil compartments would help us in discerning the functional difference between them. Considering the functional specialty of pneumatophore roots in mangrove ecosystems, we hypothesized that root-associated soil compartments, rhizosphere and pneumatophore differ in their fungal richness (number of fungal taxa) and Shannon diversity (a combined measure of richness and the evenness of their abundance). We tested the following predictions in mangrove ecosystem: (i) fungal richness and diversity are significantly different in rhizosphere, pneumatophore and bulk soil compartments (hereafter referred to as “bulk”), (ii) the selected soil compartments, bulk, pneumatophore and rhizosphere affect fungal community composition significantly and (iii) the availability carbon and nitrogen of different soil compartments affect a part of fungal community composition
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