Diversity of fungi at various depths of marine water

Abstract

Fungi are native inhabitants of water and some species behave as opportunistic pathogens in man. Fungi, all above all filamentous fungi can occur almost everywhere, even in marine water. The knowledge about the occurrence and diversity of fungi in water has increased considerably from a low knowledge base. The aim of this study was to gain an overview of the spectrum of filamentous fungi in marine water. Stratified samples of marine water were collected from Arabian Sea near Dona Paula beach, Goa under as sterile conditions as possible from six different depths which varied from 5 to 200 centimeters in depth. Attempts were made to recover fungi from these different water samples collected. Fungi were isolated by using membrane filtration and plating method with subsequent cultivation on agar plates. The different taxa of fungi were identified using routine  techniques as well as molecular methods. Fungi were analyzed in all the water samples examined. This paper aims at the isolation and  identification of fungi from marine water. The isolation of fungi from different depths of water suggests that there are a wide variety of fungi in  marine water and the most prevailing genera were found to be Aspergillus sp., Cladosporium cladosporioides and Thysanophora sp. This study  showed that marine water can also be a reservoir for wide diversity of fungi.