Diversity and biochemical features of culturable fungi from the coastal waters of Southern China.
Fungi play a major role in various biogeochemical cycles of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, fungi in marine environments remain to be one of the most under-studied microbial groups. This study investigates the diversity of planktonic fungi from the coastal habitat off Pearl River Delta (China) using culture-dependent approach. A total of 22 fungi and 9 yeast isolates were recovered from 30 seawater and 2 sediment samples. Microscopic and ITS rRNA gene sequence analyses revealed that most of the fungi belonged to the phylum Ascomycota and Basidiomycota with a very small percentage (3%) of the subphylum Mucoromycotina of the Phylum Zygomycota. Most of these fungal isolates exhibited considerable production of extracellular enzymes, cellulase, lipase and laccase. Fungal isolates of two genera Mucor and Aspergillus sp. demonstrated pelletization capability over a wide range of pH, suggesting them as potential agents towards algae harvesting and wastewater treatment.
School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China ; Department of Biological Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
Li
L
Li
School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Purnima
P
Singh
School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Ying
Y
Liu
Department of Biological Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
Shenquan
S
Pan
School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China ; Tianjin University Center for Marine Environmental Ecology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China ; Department of Microbiology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu 96822, HI, USA.
Guangyi
G
Wang
Diversity; Hydrolytic enzymes; Marine-derived fungi; Pelleterization