Abstract
Nematodes and fungi are both ubiquitous in marine environments, yet few studies have investigated relationships between these two groups. Microbial species share many well-documented interactions with both free-living and parasitic nematode species, and limited data from previous studies have suggested ecological associations between fungi and nematodes in benthic marine habitats. This study aimed to further document the taxonomy and distribution of fungal taxa often co-amplified from nematode specimens. A total of 15 fungal 18S rRNA phylotypes were isolated from nematode specimens representing both deep-sea and shallow water habitats; all fungal isolates displayed high pairwise sequence identities with published data in Genbank (99–100%) and unpublished high-throughput 454 environmental datasets (>95%). BLAST matches indicate marine fungal sequences amplified in this study broadly represent taxa within the phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, and several phylotypes showed robust groupings with known taxa in phylogenetic topologies. In addition, some fungal phylotypes appeared to be present in disparate geographic habitats, suggesting cosmopolitan distributions or closely related species complexes in at least some marine fungi. The present study was only able to isolate fungal DNA from a restricted set of nematode taxa; further work is needed to fully investigate the taxonomic scope and function of nematode-fungal interactions.
Highlights
In benthic marine environments, free-living nematodes often outnumber other groups in terms of diversity and abundance and are known to play key roles in ecosystem processes [1,2]
Three different fungal clones were detected alongside Rame Head nematodes: RH1, RH2 and RH3
The highest matches for RH1 were to an uncultured marine ascomycete 18S rRNA clone PRTBE7395 (Acc No HM799862) amplified from ocean water collected from 6000 depth within the Puerto Rico Trench, with the closest match representing an uncultured fungal partial 18S rRNA sequence JCF1 (Acc No AJ965493); these two GenBank sequences are perhaps closely related members of the Chaetothyriales (Herpotrichiellaceae)
Summary
Free-living nematodes often outnumber other groups in terms of diversity and abundance and are known to play key roles in ecosystem processes [1,2]. Marine fungi represent another ecologically important group amongst benthic organisms, acting as key intermediates of energy flow from detritus to higher trophic levels in marine ecosystems [3,4,5]. Less research has been conducted on nematode-fungal relationships, some association between fungi and soil nematodes been reported in the literature [14], and it is likely that similar relationships exist amongst marine species
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