Chapter 5 - Biodiversity of the fungi in extreme marine environments

Abstract

The marine environment is extremely complex and contains a broad spectrum of fungal diversity. The unique physico-chemical properties of the marine environment are likely to have conferred marine fungi with special physiological adaptations that could be exploited in biotechnology. The prominence of this chapter is on marine fungi which are derived from the extreme environment and their distinctive ecological habitats. These habitats are endophytic or associated with marine flora and fauna. The deep-sea, an extreme environment of high hydrostatic pressure, low temperatures, hydrothermal vents with high temperatures, high metal concentrations and anoxic marine sediments are some of the unexplored sources of fungal diversity. Understandings the adaptations of extremotolerant fungi in such habitats are likely to provide a greater insight into the evolution of molecular adaptations in eukaryotes and an avenue for the discovery of novel genes.