Fungi in the Marine Environment: Open Questions and Unsolved Problems
Anthony Amend,
Gaetan Burgaud,
Michael Cunliffe,
Virginia P. Edgcomb,
Cassandra L. Ettinger,
M. H. Gutiérrez,
Joseph Heitman,
Erik F. Y. Hom,
Giuseppe Ianiri,
Adam C. Jones,
Maiko Kagami,
Kathryn T. Picard,
C. Alisha Quandt,
Seshagiri Raghukumar,
Mertixell Riquelme,
Jason Stajich,
José Vargas-Muñiz,
Allison K. Walker,
Oded Yarden,
Amy S. Gladfelter
Affiliations
Anthony Amend
Department of Botany, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Gaetan Burgaud
Université de Brest, EA 3882, Laboratoire Universitaire de Biodiversité et Ecologie Microbienne, ESIAB, Technopôle Brest-Iroise, Plouzané, France
Michael Cunliffe
Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, United Kingdom
Virginia P. Edgcomb
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA
Cassandra L. Ettinger
Genome Center, University of California, Davis, California, USA
M. H. Gutiérrez
Departamento de Oceanografía, Centro de Investigación Oceanográfica COPAS Sur-Austral, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile
Joseph Heitman
Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Erik F. Y. Hom
Department of Biology, University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, USA
Giuseppe Ianiri
Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Adam C. Jones
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Palo Alto, California, USA
Maiko Kagami
Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan
Kathryn T. Picard
Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
C. Alisha Quandt
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Seshagiri Raghukumar
National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India
Mertixell Riquelme
Department of Microbiology, Centro de Investigación Científica y Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE), Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
Jason Stajich
Department of Microbiology & Plant Pathology and Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
José Vargas-Muñiz
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Allison K. Walker
Department of Biology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
Oded Yarden
Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
Amy S. Gladfelter
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
ABSTRACT Terrestrial fungi play critical roles in nutrient cycling and food webs and can shape macroorganism communities as parasites and mutualists. Although estimates for the number of fungal species on the planet range from 1.5 to over 5 million, likely fewer than 10% of fungi have been identified so far. To date, a relatively small percentage of described species are associated with marine environments, with ∼1,100 species retrieved exclusively from the marine environment. Nevertheless, fungi have been found in nearly every marine habitat explored, from the surface of the ocean to kilometers below ocean sediments. Fungi are hypothesized to contribute to phytoplankton population cycles and the biological carbon pump and are active in the chemistry of marine sediments. Many fungi have been identified as commensals or pathogens of marine animals (e.g., corals and sponges), plants, and algae. Despite their varied roles, remarkably little is known about the diversity of this major branch of eukaryotic life in marine ecosystems or their ecological functions. This perspective emerges from a Marine Fungi Workshop held in May 2018 at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. We present the state of knowledge as well as the multitude of open questions regarding the diversity and function of fungi in the marine biosphere and geochemical cycles.
