Metabarcoding analysis of the fungal biodiversity associated with Casta~no Overa Glacier e Mount Tronador, Patagonia, Argentina

DUO SAITO RUBI AZUL; LAURIE CONNELL; RUSTY RODRIGUEZ; REGINA REDMAN; LIBKIND DIEGO; DE GARCIA V.

FUNGAL ECOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2018 vol. 36 p. 8 - 16

1754-5048

Cold environments represent the largest fraction of Earth´s biosphere, and are known habitats for coldadaptedmicroorganisms. The aim of this study was to assess the occurrence and biodiversity of coldadaptedfungi associated with the Casta~no Overo glacier, Mount Tronador, Patagonia, Argentina. Samplesof naked soil, glacial ice and snow were collected and analyzed using tag-encoded 454 pyrosequencingof the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS). A total of 1082 OTUs (operationaltaxonomic units) and 151,669 sequences were obtained. OTUs obtained from soil samples correspondedmainly to the phylum Ascomycota, whereas for snow and ice samples the phylum Basidiomycota was themost represented group. Metabarcoding analysis showed high biodiversity in glacial environments andallowed the detection of hitherto unknown taxa for Patagonia. To the best of our knowledge, this is thefirst report of fungal diversity in an extreme glacial environment of Patagonian Argentina using ampliconsequencing.