ABSTRACT
The number of fungi documented to date in saline water bodies is about 1500 species including 444 spp. belonging to the higher obligate marine mycota (Ascomycota–81%; Basidiomycota–2%; Mitosporic fungi–17%). Marine fungi were isolated from water and a wide variety of substrates: wood, sediments, mud, algae, corals, mangrove leaves, and other lignocellulose substrata. Fungi isolated from sediments are usually fast-growing species (e.g. Aspergillus, Penicillium), which inhabit soils also. Some marine fungi are cosmopolitan. Many fungal species isolated from salt water bodies showed high osmotolerance and remained viable under hypersaline conditions. During 1995–2006, 70 filamentous species were isolated, from one of the most saline lakes on earth, the Dead Sea water (340–350 g salt per liter) that belonged to 26 genera, 10 orders and 3 divisions (Oomycota, Zygomycota, and Ascomycota). The Dead Sea is located in the Syrian-African rift valley on the border between 57Israel and Jordan. Many species were isolated irregularly over space and time. The low similarity between species richness at different localities indicated that most of the diversity observed is periodic and they are not the common inhabitant of the sea. The species Aspergillus versicolor, Eurotium amstelodami, E. herbariorum, Cladosporium cladosporioides, and C. sphaero-spermum had the highest spatial and temporal frequency of occurrence. These species probably form a stable core of the community. In saline water bodies, fungi evolve a number of metabolic strategies, which allow them to adapt to extreme environmental conditions: to tolerate salt stress; to use a wide variety of carbon substrates including inorganic carbon that are present at very low concentrations; to grow not only aerobically, but also microaerophilically or anaerobically It seems scientifically unjustified to classify fungi isolated from salt water bodies as ‘true’ and ‘occasional’ simply because the latter are also distributed in other habitats. It is possible to conclude that the ecological situation in salt water bodies corresponds to the nutritional and ecological demands of fungal organisms. Saline as well as hypersaline aquatories may be considered econiches for fungi including habitats other than marine.
