328 
of species returned from the Phoenix and Line 
islands, is the fact that Gardner Island, Wash- 
ington Island, and Palmyra Island are, or have 
been, inhabited. 
The supratidal zone gave the highest average 
number of isolates per gm. This zone is a very 
stable area, a mixture of soil and sand. When 
the average number of isolates is compared for 
the supratidal, intertidal, and subtidal zones on 
Oahu, the intertidal displays the lowest average 
number of isolates, which may be explained 
by the influence of constant washing by the 
waves. The tidal pool area of the sand, like 
the tidal pool area of the water, is characterized 
by the presence of more fungi than are found 
in the surrounding areas of each zone. 
Two of the sand areas sampled are unique 
among sands for their color and composition, 
namely a green sand beach and a black sand 
beach. The black sand beach had 259 isolates 
distributed through 12 genera and 200 species, 
while the green sand beach had 28 isolates, in 
10 genera and 12 species. Although 4 genera 
were common to both, only 1 species, Asper- 
gillus terreus, occurred at both sites. Both 
beaches are on the island of Hawaii. One rea- 
son for this difference may be that the black 
sand beach is continually exposed to contamina- 
tion from people and their litter, while the 
green sand beach is in a very remote location. 
Another reason could be the difference in the 
chemical composition of the sands. Black sand 
is formed from basalt lava rock and cinders, 
and green sand is formed by the release of oli- 
vine crystals which are in the basalt lava rock. 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, VoL XXI, July 1967 
Most of the Phycomycetes and the Ascomy- 
cetes were isolated from sand. These fungi are 
known to adhere to substrates. Only one species 
predominates over the others, Aspergillus 
wentii, as shown in Table 2. When plating four 
samples on mycobiotic agar from beaches that 
are local tourist attractions on Oahu, one po- 
tential pathogen was found: Microascus inter - 
medius, which has been isolated from a number 
of soils by mouse passage. Several species of 
this genus are known to be etiologic agents of 
dermatophytoses and onychomycosis in man 
(Barron et ah, 1961). 
It is interesting to compare the results ob- 
tained by Roth et al. (1964) in the Atlantic 
with the results obtained from this study in the 
Pacific. Roth took 227 water samples and iden- 
tified 41 genera among his isolates. This study 
encompassed 59 water samples and resulted in 
the identification of 59 genera. Of these, 29 
genera were common to both lists. The Atlantic 
list included 11 genera not reported in this 
study; this study includes 29 genera not reported 
by Roth et al. (1964). 
Table 4 shows the difference in average num- 
ber of isolates per liter between the samples 
taken in the Atlantic Ocean and those taken in 
the Pacific Ocean. 
Furthermore, it is a striking fact that no Pa- 
cific sample, either water or sand, was without 
fungi, whereas Roth et al. (1964) recovered 
fungi from only 80% of their 227 samples. 
Because they did not include sand samples in 
their study, comparisons can be made only be- 
tween water samples. The maximum number of 
TABLE 4 
Comparison of Numbers of Isolates from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean 
ATLANTIC 
OCEAN (ROTH 
ET AL. 1964) 
PACIFIC OCEAN 
(1965) 
DEPTH 
NUMBER 
OF 
SAMPLES 
AVERAGE NUMBER 
ISOLATES 
PER LITER 
DEPTH 
NUMBER 
OF 
SAMPLES 
AVERAGE NUMBER 
ISOLATES 
PER LITER 
500 to 
5 
11.1 
600 m 
1 
13.0 
1000 m 
17 
12.1 
300 m 
1 
6.0 
9 
4.9 
300 m 
1 
10.0 
2 
1.0 
Surface 
12 
15.5 
Surface 
1 
18.0 
to 
79 
17.5 
1 
55.0 
500 m 
43 
15.1 
1 
30.0 
16 
3.0 
1 
73.0 
