Cultivable Fungal Diversity in Deep-Sea Sediment of the East Pacific Ocean

AbstractThe diversity of fungi in the marine environment has been extensively studied, but their denitrification activity has rarely been reported to date. In the present study, we used six different media to isolate fungi from 10 sediment samples collected at five different locations of the East Pacific Ocean with water depths ranging from 4545 to 7068 m. Fungal identification and phylogenetic diversity analysis were conducted based on morphological characteristics and internal transcribed spacers of ribosomal DNA (ITS-rRNA) sequencing. A total of 106 fungal isolates, belonging to 12 genera, including Aspergillus (five strains), Aureobasidium (three strains), Candida (two strains), Cladosporium (56 strains), Cystobasidium (one strain), Devriesia (nine strains), Knufia (one strain), Nigrospora (three strains), Penicillium (18 strains), Rhodotorula (four strains), Sarocladium (three strains), and unclassified Xylariales (one strain) were obtained. The most dominant culturable genus was Cladosporium. One po...