New Findings of Cultured Micromycetes in the Deep-Sea Sediments of the Black Sea

Abstract

On August 24, 2011, during the cruise of R/V Professor Vodyanitsky in the Black Sea, bottom sediments were sampled from the hydrogen sulfide zone at a depth of 756 m at the station with coordinates 44°40ʹ70"N, 31o51ʹ70"E. The sample was taken using an automatic “Shelf” box corer (United States). A sediment core of 40 cm high was cut out of the box corer. The sediment core is further cut horizontally in 5 cm (8 samples). The sediment is homogeneous dark gray silt with thin white stripes and the smell of hydrogen sulfide. Eighteen species of fungi were found in sediments, 3 taxa were identified to genus level, the taxa were assigned to 11 genera, 10 families, 10 orders, 7 classes from the phylums Ascomycota, Basidiomycota and Mucoromycota. Representatives of the classes Eurotiomycetes (8) and Dothideomycetes (4) dominated in the taxonomic composition of mycocomplexes of sediments in the Black Sea. The abundance of micromycetes varied from 40 (horizon 15–20 cm) to 3300 CFU g-1 dry sediment (horizon 5–10 cm); the maximum number of taxa (5) was recorded in the horizon of 25–30 cm. The representatives of the phylum Ascomycota dominated in the samples in terms of the number of taxa – 91.23%.