ABSTRACT
Oligotrophs are microorganisms that can grow in the presence of low concentrations of nutrients, or even where nutrients appear to be nonexistent. The term
oligotrophy
is generally used to describe the strategy used by microorganisms to grow on low concentrations of organic carbon, more strictly referred to as oligocarbotrophy (Poindexter, 1981). By far, the majority of the literature on microbial oligotrophy relates to bacteria, and some authors have suggested that this growth strategy is restricted to prokaryotes (Fry, 1990). However, as I hope to make clear here, as I have attempted elsewhere (Wainwright, 1993), evidence increasingly shows that many fungi can grow oligotrophically.
