Marine Fungi from Central Pacific — S teele 
not significant for the dilutions used. There- 
fore, the number of isolates from the total 
number of milliliters used in plating is re- 
corded as an average isolation return per ml 
of water samples. The average number of iso- 
lates from any one sample ranged from 0.06 
to 3.94 isolates per ml, with the average for 
samples at 0.14. The number of species ranged 
from 1 to 17 per sample. More than 50% of 
the sites, however, returned only 2 to 7 dif- 
ferent species (Steele, 1965). The predominant 
genera and species by percentage of occur- 
rence are listed in Table 2. 
Table 3 lists the 126 species of fungi repre- 
senting 59 genera which were isolated from 
the water samples plated. The percentage of 
occurrence represents the number of water sam- 
ples in which a particular fungus occurred in 
reference to the total number of samples ana- 
lyzed. A tabulation of species isolated from 
the six zones sampled shows that they can be 
ranked in descending order for number of 
species per zone as follows: inshore neritic, 70; 
surf, 56; polluted zone, 28; oceanic, off John- 
ston Island, 23; oceanic, off Oahu, 20; and 
offshore neritic, 13. The inshore neritic zone 
was the richest area, having a higher average 
321 
number of isolates than either the surf or 
oceanic zones. A very low average number of 
isolates was obtained from both oceanic regions. 
The offshore oceanic area near Johnston Island 
returned more isolates than the comparable zone 
near Oahu, but both areas had about the same 
number of species. Aureobasidium pullulans 
and Rhodotorula spp. were common to both 
oceanic sites. These fungi were among those 
predominant in all isolations from water 
(Table 2). 
As might be expected, samples from the 
polluted areas off Oahu had the highest aver- 
age number of fungi: 3.18 per ml. This was 
an area of diverse speciation. Members of the 
Sphaeropsidales were common, as were species 
of Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Cephalo- 
sp or turn. 
Populations in Sand 
From 67 sand samples plated from four dif- 
ferent zones, 134 species of fungi representing 
71 genera were recovered (Table 3). The fre- 
quency of predominant isolates by species is 
given as percentage of occurrence (Table 2). 
The average number of isolates per gm, ob- 
tained by the standard dilution plate counting 
TABLE 2 
Predominant Genera and Species in Water and Samples 
WATER 
PERCENTAGE * 
OF 
OCCURRENCE 
SAND 
PERCENTAGE 
OF 
OCCURRENCE 
Yeasts 
45.8 
Aspergillus wentii 
50.7 
Rhodotorula spp. 
27.1 
Fusarium spp. 
44.7 
Fusarium spp. 
22.0 
Phialophora spp. 
25.3 
Cephalosporium curtipes 
22.0 
Penicillium spp. 
22.3 
Cladosporium cladosporioides 
16.9 
Aspergillus niger 
20.8 
C. epiphyllum 
16.9 
Y easts 
20.8 
Helminihosporium anomalum 
16.9 
Me gas ter sp. 
17.6 
Trichoderma lignorum 
15.2 
Masoniella grisea 
16.4 
Aspergillus niger 
13.5 
Aspergillus spp. 
14.9 
A. went ii 
13.5 
A. terreus 
13.4 
Aureobasidium pullulans 
13.5 
A. ustus 
11.9 
Phoma spp. 
11.8 
Trichoderma lignorum 
11.9 
Aspergillus spp. 
11.8 
Cladosporium cladosporioides 
11.9 
Black yeasts 
11.8 
C. epiphyllum 
11.9 
Pestalotia spp. 
10.1 
Cephalosporium roseo-griseum 
11.9 
Cladosporium herbarum 
10.1 
C. spp. 
11.9 
Aspergillus versicolor 
10.1 
C. acremonium 
10.4 
Penicillium spp. 
10.1 
C. curtipes 
10.4 
Penicillium lilacinum 
10.4 
* The percentage of occurrence represents the number of water or sand samples in which a particular fungus occurred in 
reference to the total of 59 water samples or 67 sand samples analyzed (Orpurt, 1964). 
