Marine Filamentous Fungi: Diversity, Distribution and Bioprospecting

Marine fungi constitute a model mycobiota to evaluate several fundamental assumptions and adaptations to extreme habitats. They are ecologically diverse and cosmopolitan in distribution in all oceans as endemics and indigenous communities. Molecular techniques are revealing high diversity and distribution than assessment based on morphological characterization. They have the capability to grow and process a wide variety of detritus and substrata in saline habitats. Besides, they also colonize live parts especially mangrove plant species, seaweeds and sea grasses as endophytes. Majority of studies on marine fungi are confined to the Europe, North America and Southeast Asia, while meagre information is available from the Indian Subcontinent in spite of its rich marine habitats. In the recent past, marine fungi became a focal point of investigation especially for bioprospecting. Marine fungi are capable of yielding a variety of new compounds worth exploring for their bioactive potential especially enzymes, antibiotics, anticancer properties and bioremediation. The current knowledge is mainly from culture-dependent marine fungi, while understanding culture-independent marine fungi needs sophisticated methods like metagenomics. Besides, metagenomics enhances our knowledge on marine fungal diversity and distribution and helps in cloning precise DNA of culture-independent fungi to harness bioactive principles.