BIOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE MARINE FUNGI OF WOODS HOLE WATERS

Abstract

In the foregoing paper are described fifteen species of phycomycetous marine fungi, two myxomycetes, and a Protomyxa-like protozoan, all collected in the vicinity of Woods Hole, Mass. Included in these are two new genera and two new species. With one exception, the fungi were either parasites, facultative saprophytes, or saprophytes on various species of marine algæ. One was found parasitizing the eggs of a microscopic animal, probably a rotifer. The results of preliminary attempts to culture Sirolpidium bryopsidis, a facultative saprophyte of the green alga, Bryopsis plumosa, are reported. None of these fungi, with perhaps the exception of Rhizophidium discinctum, has heretofore been known from the United States. The existence of true marine fungi, their work as one of the several types of "reducers" in the sea, and their possible importance in the formation of marine humus are discussed in particular.