Friday, November 20, 2015

Marine Fungi Discovered, Majority of Diversification/Evolution Seems to Have been Terrestrial

Researchers from the University of Exeter have discovered several new species of marine fungi inhabiting previously undescribed branches of the tree of life. Little is known about the fungi flourishing in the world's oceans and this study, which set out to investigate its diversity and abundance, revealed that many marine fungi are very different from those found on land.

The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, used large-scale DNA sequencing to describe the diversity of fungal microbes in a wide range of marine environments.

The study found a lower diversity and abundance of fungi in marine environments, suggesting that the majority of evolutionary diversification of fungi occurred on the land not in the sea.

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