Osmophilous fungi in the salt marshes of Kuwait

Abstract

During an investigation of the mycoflora inhabiting saline soils in Kuwait, special attention was focused on osmophilous fungi. A total of 101 species belonging to 46 genera were encountered from 40 soil samples collected from salt marshes using Czapek's agar supplemented with 40% sucrose. Soil samples were collected from different habitats at different distances from the water edge. Soils near to the water edge were poor in their fungal content, while those taken from areas covered by Juncus arabicus contained highest fungal populations. The recorded genera were classified as follows: 7 were of high frequency of occurrence, 8 moderate, 17 low, and 13 were rare. The order of dominance was Aspergillus, Alternaria, Penicillium, Cephalosporium, Fusarium, Stachybotrys, and Drechslera. Comparison between our results and those in other studies showed that there is no fungal flora characteristic of saline soils.

Dynamics (seasonal and intra-diurnal) of air-borne fungal spore population of Doha area, Qatar

“…Sediment fungal composition was found to be influenced by salinity gradient more than plant appearance. In contrast, greater fungal diversity was detected by the presence of plants and much less by salinity, only with intermediate salinity, greater fungal diversity was detected (Mohamed & Martiny, 2011).In Kuwait, the saline soil yielded 14 species of Aspergillus revealing that the saline soil may provide a suitable habitat for considerable number of fungi and subsequently contribute to the aerial occurrence of the related fungi (Moustafa, 1975).…”

Thermotolerant Aspergilli in Kuwait Air Compared with Other Areas of Similar Climate

“…That is also the view of Moustafa and Kamel [2] who, based on their parallel saltmarsh soil studies in Kuwait [15], suggest that most airborne thermotolerant aspergilli in Kuwait do not originate locally, but are brought by wind from Iraq or Iran in early summer, or from the southeast during No vember, the other peak period. Data on the wind directions during the periods of inves tigation in 1983 and 1985 differed some what, i.e.…”

“…One source of aspergillus infections is envi ronmental, either from direct (dust) or indi rect (air) routes. In studying the etiology of aspergillosis in any country, therefore, one should know the local characteristics of ther motolerant aspergilli in the air flora, and to date, data on Kuwait are limited [1,2,15].…”

Two novel Aspergillus species from hypersaline soils of The National Park of Lake Urmia, Iran

“…Many species in this section are adapted to reduced water activity conditions and are able to grow in natural dry habitats. For example, A. flavipes isolates tolerate relatively high concentrations of osmotically active solutes in media, being able to grow on media with 40 % (w/v) sucrose and 25 % (w/v) NaCl (Tresner and Hayes 1971;Moustafa and AL-Musallam 1975) and were isolated from natural habitats with high NaCl concentration such as salterns (Moustafa 1975;Butinar et al 2011;Cantrell et al 2011), brackish water (Pawar and Thirumalachar 1966) or coastal sand of the Dead Sea (Grishkhan et al 2003). The most well-known species from section Terrei is A. terreus, a cosmopolitan species known from desert and grassland soils, compost heaps, and also as contaminants on stored corn, barley and peanuts (Kozakiewicz 1989).…”