Marine Fungi Associated with Antarctic Macroalgae

Abstract

Fungi are well known for their important roles in terrestrial ecosystems, but filamentous and yeast forms are also active components of microbial communities from marine ecosystems. Marine fungi are particularly abundant and relevant in coastal systems where they can be found in association with large organic substrata, like seaweeds. Antarctica is a rather unexplored region of the planet that is being influenced by strong and rapid climate change. In the past decade, several efforts have been made to get a thorough inventory of marine fungi from different environments, with a particular emphasis on those associated with the large communities of seaweeds that abound in littoral and infralittoral ecosystems. The algicolous fungal communities obtained were characterized by a few dominant species and a large number of singletons, as well as a balance among endemic, indigenous, and cold-adapted cosmopolitan species. The long-term monitoring of this balance and the dynamics of richness, dominance, and distributional patterns of these algicolous fungal communities is proposed to understand and model the influence of climate change on the maritime Antarctic biota. In addition, several fungal isolates from marine Antarctic environments have shown great potential as producers of bioactive natural products and enzymes and may represent attractive sources of biotechnological products.