Analysis of Soil Fungal and Bacterial Communities in Tianchi Volcano Crater, Northeast China

Abstract

High-altitude volcanoes, typical examples of extreme environments, are considered of particular interest in biology as a possible source of novel and exclusive microorganisms. We analyzed the crater soil microbial diversity of Tianchi Volcano, northeast China, by combining molecular and morphological analyses of culturable microbes, and metabarcoding based on Illumina sequencing, in order to increase our understanding of high-altitude volcanic microbial community structure. One-hundred and seventeen fungal strains belonging to 51 species and 31 genera of Ascomycota, Basidiomycota and Mucoromycota were isolated. Penicillium, Trichoderma, Cladosporium, Didymella, Alternaria and Fusarium dominated the culturable fungal community. A considerable number of isolated microbes, including filamentous fungi, such as Aureobasidium pullulans and Epicoccum nigrum, yeasts (Leucosporidium creatinivorum), and bacteria (Chryseobacterium lactis and Rhodococcus spp.), typical of high-altitude, cold, and geothermal extreme environments, provided new insights in the ecological characterization of the investigated environment, and may represent a precious source for the isolation of new bioactive compounds. A total of 1254 fungal and 2988 bacterial operational taxonomic units were generated from metabarcoding. Data analyses suggested that the fungal community could be more sensitive to environmental and geographical change compared to the bacterial community, whose network was characterized by more complicated and closer associations.

Diversity and Co-Occurrence Patterns of Fungal and Bacterial Communities from Alkaline Sediments and Water of Julong High-Altitude Hot Springs at Tianchi Volcano, Northeast China

“…The hot spring sediment samples were prepared following the method described in detail by Wang and Pecoraro [38]. In brief, five-and 50-times diluted suspensions were prepared from ground sediment materials and finally shaken at 220 rpm for 5 min.…”

“…Molecular identification of fungal and bacterial strains was performed based on PCR amplification of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of fungal rDNA using primers ITS1 and ITS4, and V3 to V4 hypervariable region of bacterial 16S rRNA using primers U341F and U806R, respectively. Fungal and bacterial genomic DNA was obtained and amplified as described by Wang and Pecoraro [38]. PCR products were Sanger sequenced at Tianjin Tsingke Biological Technology Co., Ltd. (Tianjin, China).…”

“…Total genomic DNA from the sediment samples was extracted using a FastDNA ® Spin Kit for soil (MP Biomedicals, Solon, OH, USA) according to the manufacturer's instructions. PCR amplifications were carried out using specific primers (fungal ITS2 rDNA region: ITS3F and ITS4R; V3-V4 hypervariable region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene: 338F and 806R) as described by Wang and Pecoraro [38]. The amplicon libraries were constructed using the NEXTFLEX ® Rapid DNA-Seq Kit (Bioo Scientific, Austin, TX, USA) and pairedend sequenced (2 × 300 bases) on an Illumina MiSeq PE300 platform (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA, USA) at Shanghai Majorbio Bio-Pharm Technology Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China).…”

Bacterial Diversity and Community Structure of a Municipal Solid Waste Landfill: A Source of Lignocellulolytic Potential

“…They made up 32.5%, 29.5%, 23%, and 8.5%, respectively, of the total bacteria community, which accounted for over 90%. They are known to be top phyla in highly diverse bacterial communities [34]. They are identified lignocellulose biomass degraders in several communities ranging from peat forests to switch grass [35,36].…”

Biosynthesis Pathways, Transport Mechanisms and Biotechnological Applications of Fungal Siderophores

“…During the evolution of life on earth, the majority of iron was in insoluble Fe (III) forms. Therefore, microorganisms including fungi, bacteria, and cyanobacteria adapted to low iron availability levels and overcame iron deficiency by synthesizing siderophores [6][7][8]. Siderophores are low molecular weight compounds (200-2000 Da) produced by different microbes, which chelate the iron from different habitats [9].…”