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Oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) represent ~8% of the ocean, with the Pacific as the largest and top expanding area. These regions influence marine ecosystems, promoting anaerobic microbial communities. Nevertheless, only a fraction of microbial diversity has been studied, with fungi being the less explored component. So, herein we analyzed fungal diversity patterns in surface and subsurface sediments along a bathymetric transect using metabarcoding of the ITS1 region in the OMZ of the Mexican Pacific off Mazatlán. We identified 353 amplicon sequence variants (ASV), within the Ascomycota , Basidiomycota , and Rozellomycota . Spatial patterns evidenced higher alpha diversity in nearshore and subsurface subsamples, probably due to temporal fluctuations in organic matter inputs. Small-scale heterogeneity characterized the community with the majority of ASV (269 ASV) occurring in a single subsample, hinting at the influence of local biogeochemical conditions. This baseline data evidenced a remarkable fungal diversity presenting high variation along a bathymetric and vertical transects.
Posadas et al. (Mon,) studied this question.