Seagrasses are marine flowering plants that provide critical ecosystem services in coastal environments worldwide. Marine fungi are often overlooked in microbiome and seagrass studies, despite terrestrial fungi having critical functional roles as decomposers, pathogens, or endophytes in global ecosystems. Here, we characterize the distribution of fungi associated with the seagrass Zostera marina, using leaves, roots, and rhizosphere sediment from 16 locations across its full biogeographic range. Using high-throughput sequencing of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and 18S rRNA gene, we first measured fungal community composition and diversity. We then tested hypotheses of neutral community assembly theory and the degree to which deviations suggested that amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were plant selected or dispersal limited. Finally, we identified a core mycobiome and investigated the global distribution of differentially abundant ASVs. We found that the fungal community is significantly different between sites and that the leaf mycobiome follows a weak but significant pattern of distance decay in the Pacific Ocean. Generally, there was evidence for both deterministic and stochastic factors contributing to community assembly of the mycobiome, with most taxa assembling through stochastic processes. The Z. marina core leaf and root mycobiomes were dominated by unclassified Sordariomycetes spp., unclassified Chytridiomycota lineages (including Lobulomycetaceae spp.), unclassified Capnodiales spp., and Saccharomyces sp. It is clear from the many unclassified fungal ASVs and fungal functional guilds that knowledge of marine fungi is still rudimentary. Further studies characterizing seagrass-associated fungi are needed to understand the roles of these microorganisms generally and when associated with seagrasses. IMPORTANCE Fungi have important functional roles when associated with land plants, yet very little is known about the roles of fungi associated with marine plants, like seagrasses. In this study, we report the results of a global effort to characterize the fungi associated with the seagrass Zostera marina across its full biogeographic range. Although we defined a putative global core fungal community, it is apparent from the many fungal sequences and predicted functional guilds that had no matches to existing databases that general knowledge of seagrass-associated fungi and marine fungi is lacking. This work serves as an important foundational step toward future work investigating the functional ramifications of fungi in the marine ecosystem.

Here, we report results from PCR and sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes from leaf and root surfaces from nine submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) samples comprising five species. Samples were from four sites along the Potomac River.

The teosinte branched1(tb1) gene is a major QTL controlling branching differences between maize and its wild progenitor, teosinte. The insertion of a transposable element (Hopscotch) upstream of tb1 is known to enhance the gene's expression, causing reduced tillering in maize. Observations of the maize tb1 allele in teosinte and estimates of an insertion age of the Hopscotch that predates domestication led us to investigate its prevalence and potential role in teosinte. We assessed the prevalence of the Hopscotch element across an Americas-wide sample of 837 maize and teosinte individuals using a co-dominant PCR assay. Additionally, we calculated population genetic summaries using sequence data from a subset of individuals from four teosinte populations and collected phenotypic data using seed from a single teosinte population where Hopscotch was found segregating at high frequency. Genotyping results indicate the Hopscotch element is found in a number of teosinte populations and linkage disequilibrium near tb1 does not support recent introgression from maize. Population genetic signatures are consistent with selection on the tb1 locus, revealing a potential ecological role, but a greenhouse experiment does not detect a strong association between the Hopscotch and tillering in teosinte. Our findings suggest the role of Hopscotch differs between maize and teosinte. Future work should assess tb1 expression levels in teosinte with and without the Hopscotch and more comprehensively phenotype teosinte to assess the ecological significance of the Hopscotch insertion and, more broadly, the tb1 locus in teosinte.

We present a global atlas of 4,728 metagenomic samples from mass-transit systems in 60 cities over 3 years, representing the first systematic, worldwide catalog of the urban microbial ecosystem. This atlas provides an annotated, geospatial profile of microbial strains, functional characteristics, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) markers, and genetic elements, including 10,928 viruses, 1,302 bacteria, 2 archaea, and 838,532 CRISPR arrays not found in reference databases. We identified 4,246 known species of urban microorganisms and a consistent set of 31 species found in 97% of samples that were distinct from human commensal organisms. Profiles of AMR genes varied widely in type and density across cities. Cities showed distinct microbial taxonomic signatures that were driven by climate and geographic differences. These results constitute a high-resolution global metagenomic atlas that enables discovery of organisms and genes, highlights potential public health and forensic applications, and provides a culture-independent view of AMR burden in cities.