Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Co-Occurrence Patterns of Marine Fungal Communities Along Nutrient Gradients in the Leizhou Peninsula, China

Marine fungi are pivotal components of coastal ecosystems, facilitating essential biogeochemical cycling and trophic dynamics. However, the complex mechanisms governing their spatiotemporal community patterns in tropical-subtropical coasts remain largely unexplored. In this study, we characterized marine fungal diversity across a comprehensive seasonal cycle (spring (March), summer (June), autumn (August), and winter (December)) at 21 representative sites along the Leizhou Peninsula, China. These sites were strategically selected to encompass a broad range of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) gradients. Fungal community composition was characterized via high-throughput sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region, followed by functional guild profiling using the FUNGuild database. A total of 8777 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were identified, encompassing a broad taxonomic breadth of 10 phyla and 358 genera. Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Chytridiomycota emerged as the predominant phyla across all samples. Our results revealed significant spatiotemporal heterogeneities: seasonal succession fundamentally reshaped community composition, with DIN exerting its most pronounced influence during the winter. Furthermore, fungal functional structures exhibited distinctive clustering across regions defined by DIN enrichment levels. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed a highly modular and robust architecture, characterized by predominantly positive interactions and dense inter-taxon connectivity. These findings underscore the synergistic influence of temporal dynamics and DIN enrichment in shaping marine fungal community assembly and functional compositions. Our study provides critical baseline insights into the ecological resilience of coastal mycobiota in the South China Sea.