Fungi don’t just live in soils and with land plants, or breaking down complex materials like wood. They also thrive in the marine environment. Indeed, ocean-living fungi account for 5% of total ocean biomass.
Unlike their counterparts on land, most marine fungi are only visible with a microscope. An exception are marine lichens (fungi that live in symbiosis with photosynthetic algae or cyanobacteria and other microbes), which can be seen living on rocky seashores.
Despite being known to science for over a century thanks to a few early pioneering marine mycologists, most people have never heard of marine fungi. Even scientists like me still only have a limited understanding of their diversity and ecological importance, because few researchers are working on these fungi.
