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Soil micromycete diversity in the hypersaline Dead Sea coastal area, Israel

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Abstract

In the present study, a soil microfungal community was examined over a one-year period (1999–2000) at the western shore of the Dead Sea. A total of 78 species from 40 genera were isolated. The most prominent features of mycobiota of the territory studied were: (i) the prevailing number of melanin-containing micromycetes (46 species, 65.5 % of the total isolate number); (ii) a large share of teleomorphic Ascomyceta (26 species, 18.5 % of isolates); (iii) combination of true soil and plant surface inhabiting species; (iv) spatial and temporal variation of the mycobiota composition; (v) very low fungal density (nearly 500-fold lower than in the Judean Desert soil). These features are formed under the extremely stressful xeric and oligotrophic conditions in which the Dead Sea coastal micromycete community exists. Nine species (Alternaria alternata, A. raphani, Aspergillus niger, Aureobasidium pullulans, Chaetomium globosum, Ch. murorum, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Penicillium aurantiogriseum, and Stachybotrys chartarum) were considered a characteristic micromycete complex for the Dead Sea coastal habitat based on the spatial and temporal occurrence of these species. Many of the micromycetes isolated, including almost all the species listed above, are known to be distributed worldwide occurring in different soil types. This confirms the conclusion of many mycologists working in areas with saline and arid soils that there is no halo-and thermophilous mycobiota characteristic for those soils.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 31905, Israel

    Isabella Grishkan, Eviatar Nevo & Solomon P. Wasser

  2. N.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Tereshchenkivskaya str., 201601, Kiev, Ukraine

    Solomon P. Wasser

Authors
  1. Isabella Grishkan
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  2. Eviatar Nevo
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  3. Solomon P. Wasser
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Correspondence to Solomon P. Wasser.

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Grishkan, I., Nevo, E. & Wasser, S.P. Soil micromycete diversity in the hypersaline Dead Sea coastal area, Israel. Mycol Progress 2, 19–28 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-006-0040-9

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