Diversity of culturable soil fungi in different habitats and depths in mangrove ecosystem

Abstract:

[Objective] To understand the diversity of culturable fungal resource isolated from soil in different habitats (intertidal zone, transitional zone from sea to mangrove, mangrove forest zone) of mangrove ecosystem. [Methods] Diluted sediment suspensions were spread on plates to isolate fungi. The phylogenetic and genetic diversity of fungal isolates was analyzed using morphology and ITS rDNA sequences, respectively. [Results] In total 257 fungi belonging to 21 genera and 28 species were isolated from soils in 3 different habitats of mangrove ecosystem. Penicillium, Aspergillus and Trichoderma were the dominant fungal populations. Fungal populations from different habitats or different depths were different. Spatially, diversity index from the mangrove forest zone were higher than those from the other two habitats; vertically, diversity index of surface-layer samples were higher than those of deep-layer samples in intertidal and transitional zones, while diversity index of deep-layer samples were higher than those of surface-layer samples in mangrove forest zone. [Conclusion] The ecological distribution characteristics of culturable soil fungi in mangrove ecosystem provided background data of fungal resource for us to explore potential applications.

Key words:Tropical zone, marine fungi, biodiversity, morphological taxonomy, molecular phylogeny