THE OCCURRENCE OF SAPROPHYTIC FUNGI IN MARINE MUDS

¹ From the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Botany Department of the University of Michigan

Stratified samples of marine bottom were collected under as sterile conditions as possible from four stations which varied from 18 to 220 meters in depth. These stations were located in Buzzard's Bay, Vineyard Sound, and the Gulf of Maine and varied considerably in their distances from land. Attempts were made to recover saprophytic fungi from these cores. Two methods were used: (1) water cultures "baited" with suitable material of marine origin; and (2) the plating out of samples from (a) the water immediately above the surface of the mud core, (b) the surface of the core, (c) the middle, and (d) the bottom of the core. Suitable controls were maintained. No fungi were found in the water cultures. By the plate method using a nutrient medium made up in sea water, 239 colonies were formed in dishes containing water from just above the surface of the core and from the surface of the core itself, eight colonies, in dishes containing material from the middle and bottom of the core, and two colonies in the controls.

A preliminary experiment to determine whether or not fungi were associated with decaying phytoplankton showed definitely that such was the case.

The fungi obtained by the plate method were all common dust and wind-borne forms. Since the methods used in the recovery of fungi did not show in what form they existed on the sea-bottom and since no species which might be called typically marine were recovered, it is doubtful in the present state of our knowledge whether these organisms play an active part in the disintegration of organic materials present in the mud.