Book Review pubs.acs.org/jnp
Review of Marine Fungi and Fungal-Like Organisms The book is very well organized and includes a number of beautiful illustrations and useful tables, graphs, and other figures. The text is essentially error free and overall very well written. One seeming error is the number of secondary metabolites isolated from marine fungi, presented as 10 000 on page 11, but as 1100 on pages 412−413. On page 428, the structures of metabolites 118−120 and 127−129 do not include the position where the halogens (R = Cl or Br) should be incorporated. Clearly, this book is a gold mine of information presented by active researchers in the field of marine mycology and related areas. It constitutes a highly recommended reference for those interested in marine fungal diversity, ecology, and biotechnological applications.
Marine Fungi and Fungal-Like Organisms. By E. B. Gareth Jones (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur) and Ka-Lai Pang (National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and Boston. 2012. xvi + 532 pp. 18 × 24.5 cm. US $196.00. ISBN 978-3-11-026398-5. arine mycology is a research field that attained recognition only recently with the development of new microbiological tools. Consequently, the development of marine mycology has expanded in different directions, including taxonomy and phylogeny, diversity, ecology, and biotechnological applications. Therefore, this book is a very welcome expert evaluation of recent developments in marine mycology. The book has four sections, although the first two are closely related, both dealing with the phylogeny of marine fungi and fungal-like organisms. Incredibly, less than 600 species of marine fungi have been described to date, indicating that much effort remains to be employed toward the description of marine fungi, since 10 000 species of fungi are expected to be present in the oceans. The next chapters deal almost exclusively with particularities of specific marine fungal groups, such as the Dothideomycetes, Sordariomycetes, Basidiomycetes (macroscopic fungi, mostly at mangroves), filamentous anamorphic fungi, yeasts, and zoosporic fungi, as well as other very specific taxonomic fungal groups. The section on biodiversity encompasses detailed and critical reviews on mangrove fungi, fungi associated with plants and animals, and fungi at salt marshes, as well as a discussion on diversity and ecology of marine-derived fungi. Considering the diversity of habitats, substrates, and ecological niches, this section is an important source of information on the environmental factors influencing marine fungi distribution. However, it is clear that such surveys are still largely based on culture-dependent approaches. As stated by several authors in different chapters of this section, future assessments using modern genomic tools will certainly provide a much more reliable landscape of the marine fungal diversity in distinct environments. The final section, on application of marine fungi, which includes a chapter on natural products from marine-derived fungi, is an excellent analysis of current trends and future prospects on marine fungal biodiscovery. The chapter on enzymes from marine fungi illustrates the importance of marine fungi as a very promising source of new biotechnological tools to transform organic matter such as lignin, cellulose, chitin, and other substrates. Another chapter discusses the fundamental role of fungi in the decomposition of materials in the marine and associated environments. A chapter on collections and maintenance of marine fungal cultures reports repositories of marine and marine-derived fungal strains, still very limited around the world. Finally, the epilogue by the book editors presents a thoughtful discussion on the forward-looking developments of marine mycology, giving key points to those researchers aiming to investigate marine mycology and marine fungal biotechnology.
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© 2013 American Chemical Society and American Society of Pharmacognosy
Roberto G. S. Berlinck
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Universidade de São Paulo São Carlos Brazil
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
Published: October 15, 2013 2004
dx.doi.org/10.1021/np4008552 | J. Nat. Prod. 2013, 76, 2004−2004
