Zoosporic marine fungi from the Pacific Northwest (U.S.A.)

Abstract

An investigation of the zoosporic fungi in the vicinity of the Friday Harbor Laboratory, San Juan Is., Washington, revealed the presence of great numbers of fungi. With one exception (Olpidium sp.) these were all biflagellate organisms. Predominating were species (11) of Thraustochytriaceae which abounded in water, in association with seaweeds, intertidal sands, and particularly on the surface of bottom samples down to depths of 298 m. A twelfth species of this group has several peculiarities and needs further investigation. Of the algal parasites, one on Polysiphonia and Pterosiphonia is considered new and termed Eurychasma ]oycei n. sp. Aside from the few fungi noted in JoH~so~ (1966), and FlYLLER, et al. (1964), little is known of the zoosporic marine Phyeomyeetes from the Pacific Northwest coast. The observations herein reported were made during a 10-week stay at the Friday Harbor Laboratory, University of Washington, San Juan Island in the summer of 1968. It is of interest to note that only one of the zoosporic fungi found belonged to the Chytridiomyeetes, i.e., those with a single posterior flagellum on their zoospore, which are so abundant in fresh water. The others were all biflagellate forms belonging primarily to the Saprolegniales. This peculiarity had previously been noted among marine Phycomycetes from the Atlantic coast of the United States and in the Carribean area (SPaRrow, 1936, 1968).

Fifty years of marine mycology

“…Some of the early studies of marine chytrids were by Cohn (1865), and Sparrow (1934Sparrow ( , 1936 with greater research interests in the period 1950-1970: Höhnk (1955a, b, 1961, Höhnk and Aleem (1953), Harder and Uebelmesser (1955), Ulken (1967Ulken ( , 1968Ulken ( , 1969Ulken ( , 1974, Chakravarty (1974), Booth (1969Booth ( , 1971 and Sparrow (1969). Some of these dealt with parasitic chytrids, while others were saprobic species (Patersen 1958).…”

Oomycetes and fungi: important parasites on marine algae

“…in one season (Sparrow, 1969). And further studies suggest that the optimum temperature for the parasite infection is 15 • C and infection percentage is higher in light than in dark (Raghukumar, 1996(Raghukumar, , 1978.…”

“…Scattered information indicates that host specificity of oomycetes to algae are various between different parasites and most of them are restricted to one class of algae, namely, Bacillariophyta, Chlorophyta, Phaeophyta, or Rhodophyta. However, the three pathogens Petersenia lobata, Pontisma lagenidioides and Stirolpidium andreei are the exceptions with broad host ranging from filamentous green algae to brown algae or red algae (Raghukumar, 1996(Raghukumar, , 1987Andrews, 1976;Sparrow, 1969Sparrow, , 1960. Host ranges of Ectrogella perforans and Eurychasma dicksonii span six genera under Bacillariophyta and Phaeophyta respectively (Raghukumar, 1980a, b;Sparrow, 1969Sparrow, , 1960, which suggest that the two parasites have wide host selection in certain Phylum of host.…”

“…However, the three pathogens Petersenia lobata, Pontisma lagenidioides and Stirolpidium andreei are the exceptions with broad host ranging from filamentous green algae to brown algae or red algae (Raghukumar, 1996(Raghukumar, , 1987Andrews, 1976;Sparrow, 1969Sparrow, , 1960. Host ranges of Ectrogella perforans and Eurychasma dicksonii span six genera under Bacillariophyta and Phaeophyta respectively (Raghukumar, 1980a, b;Sparrow, 1969Sparrow, , 1960, which suggest that the two parasites have wide host selection in certain Phylum of host. Infection experiments (Müller et al, 1999) indicate that an isolate of E. dicksonii from the brown alga Pylaiella littoralis (Linnaeus) Kjellman could attack 45 species covering 39 genera within 12 orders of the Phaeophyceae.…”

Morphological development of an isolate of Schizochytrium aggregatum

“…Goldstein and Belsky (3) made morphological and physiological observations of Vishniac's material as well as their material from the New York coast and described it as Schizocliytriirm aggregatum of the Saprolegniales. This fungus has since been reported from New Zealand (5), the Caribbean (6), and the Pacific Northwest (1,7).…”