Redefining the Subsurface Biosphere: Characterization of Fungi Isolated From Energy-Limited Marine Deep Subsurface Sediment.

ABSTRACT: The characterization of metabolically active fungal isolates within the deep marine subsurface will alter current ecosystem models and living biomass estimates that are limited to bacterial and archaeal populations. Although marine fungi have been studied for over fifty years, a detailed description of fungal populations within the deep subsurface is lacking. Fungi possess metabolic pathways capable of utilizing previously considered non-bioavailable energy reserves. Therefore, metabolically active fungi would occupy a unique niche within subsurface ecosystems, with the potential to provide an organic carbon source for heterotrophic prokaryotic populations from the transformation of non-bioavailable energy into substrates, as well as from the fungal necromass itself. These organic carbon s

SUBMITTER: Kiel Reese B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10512353 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature