RESEARCH ARTICLE Diversity and physiology of marine lignicolous fungi in Arctic waters: a preliminary account Ka-Lai Pang1, Raymond K.K. Chow2, Chi-Wong Chan2 & Lilian L.P. Vrijmoed2 1 Institute of Marine Biology, National Taiwan Ocean University, 2 Pei-Ning Road, Keelung 20224, Taiwan 2 Department of Biology & Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China Keywords Abstract Arctic; diversity; marine fungi; physiology. Information on the diversity of marine fungi in polar environments is lacking, Correspondence especially marine fungi colonizing wood. During visits to Tromsø and Long- Institute of Marine Biology, National Taiwan yearbyen, Norway, drift and trapped wood was collected to provide a Ocean University, 2 Pei-Ning Road, Keelung preliminary account of lignicolous marine fungi in Arctic waters. Six marine 20224, Taiwan. E-mail:
[email protected] fungi were recorded from 24 and 27 samples of wood from Tromsø and Longyearbyen, respectively. Among these, four marine fungi new to science were identified from wood collected at Longyearbyen. To shed light on the ecological role of this group of fungi in the Arctic, a physiological study of one of the collected fungi, Havispora longyearbyenensis, was conducted. H. longyearbye- 0 0 nensis grew at 48C, 108C, 158C and 208C in all salinities tested (0 /00,17/00, 0 0 34 /00). However, growth was significantly reduced at 48C and 0 /00 salinity. The optimal condition for growth of H. longyearbyenensis was at 208C in all salinities tested. Marine fungi are an ecological group of organisms, Water temperature and salinity are important physical represented by primarily filamentous ascomycetes, their parameters affecting the growth of marine lignico- anamorphs and yeasts (Pang & Mitchell 2005).