The Occurrence and Diversity of Waterborne Fungi in African Aquatic Systems: Their Impact on Water Quality and Human Health

Abstract

Currently, there is a worldwide growing interest in the occurrence and diversity of fungi and their secondary metabolites in aquatic systems, especially concerning their role in water quality and human health. However, this concern is hampered by the scant information that is available in the literature about aquatic fungi and how they affect water quality. There are only few published reports that link certain species of aquatic fungi to human health. The common aquatic fungal species that have been reported so far in African aquatic systems belong to the hyphomycetes kingdom. This paper thus aims to survey the information about the occurrence and factors that control the distribution of different species of fungi in African aquatic systems, as well as their effect on water quality and the possible metabolic pathways that lead to the formation of toxic secondary metabolites that are responsible for the deterioration of water quality. This review will also investigate the analytical and bioanalytical procedures that have been reported for the identification of different species of waterborne fungi and their secondary metabolites.

The Influence of Human Interference on Zooplankton and Fungal Diversity in Poyang Lake Watershed in China

“…However, the recent human destruction of the natural ecosystem has created unexpected consequences for human health and economic production [5,7,8]. Zooplankton are sensitive to changes in physicochemical factors [19] and fungi play a vital role in both purifying and toxifying the water [24,25]. Analyzing zooplankton and fungi diversity can improve our understanding of the factors governing water quality of the lakes and assess how human activity change the structure of zooplankton and fungus.…”

“…Water-borne fungi take part in nutrient cycling by degrading submerged substrates to stabilize the plankton food web [22] and provide food for zooplankton [23]. Some aquatic fungi can detoxify phenol during water self-purification [24] while some species contaminate water by releasing toxic material [25]. Certain fungal species are pathogenic and infectious in water, especially the phylum Chytridiomycota, which causes chytridiomycosis in amphibians, and genus Basidiobolus, which causes zygomycosis in humans.…”

Occurrence of Fungi in the Potable Water of Hospitals: A Public Health Threat

“…Some molds such as, Penicillium spp., Fusarium spp., Aspergillus spp., can produce toxic secondary metabolites that prejudice water quality and become a threat to humans and animals [24,43,49]. Some of these products are carcinogenic and have the ability to impair the immune system [43,50,51]. Although the levels of mycotoxins in water are particularly low, their concentrations may increase to hazardous levels when water is stored in reservoirs for long periods and also be present in the treated drinking water long after the fungi has died [24,49].…”

Detection, diagnosis, Koch’s postulate, hepatorenal and antioxidant indicators for some systemic pathogenic fungi invading the liver and kidneys of African catfish ( Clarias gariepinus ) in Egypt with a histopathological approach

“…Fungi can become a problem and the chance of infection will increase if fish are stressed and exposed to malnutrition, trauma, overpopulation and a high load of organic matter (Mahboub & Shaheen, 2021). The most common aquatic fungi that have been reported in African aquatic systems belong to the hyphomycetes kingdom (Magwaza, Nxumalo, Mamba & Msagati, 2017). To our knowledge, fungal infections can be superficial that invade fish skin (Mahboub & Shaheen, 2021; Parveen & Bari, 2018; Sarjito, 2019; Younis, Esawy, Elkenany & Deen, 2020) or systemic that result in internal infections (Mahboub & Shaheen, 2020; Tartor, Taha, Mahboub & El Ghamery, 2018; Younis et al, 2020).…”