Fungal diversity present in soil of King George Island, Antarctica assessed by environmental DNA metabarcoding through high throughput sequencing

The fungal diversity present in a soil collected on Punta Hannequim on King George Island, Antarctica was evaluated using DNA metabarcoding through high-throughput sequencing. Were detected 123 fungal amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) belonging to the phyla Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Chytridiomycota, Mortierellomycota, and Rozellomycota. The most dominant ASVs were from the genera Trichoderma, Gorgomyces and Neobulgarias. In addition, many unassigned ASVs were found and may represent an unknown and potentially new fungal diversity for Antarctic microbial ecology. The observed ASV richness rarefaction curve showed that all diversity of the sample was recovered. Chao, Shannon, and Simpson's indexes indicated a great diversity in sample. The diversity of fungi in the sampled region included endemic, cosmopolitan, and opportunistic plant pathogenic taxa. The presented results expand the knowledge of the fungal diversity existing in the soil of King George Island for direct the development of selective culture media capable of recovering a greater microbial diversity of this environment and thus broaden the perspectives in the field of Antarctic mycology.