Filamentous ascomycete and basidiomycete fungi from beach sand

The beach environment harbours filamentous fungi from several genera that played an important role as primary degraders of organic substrates in the beach ecosystem. In this study, filamentous fungi were isolated from beach sand collected along Batu Ferringhi and Teluk Bahang beach areas, Penang Island, Peninsular Malaysia. A total of 260 isolates of filamentous fungi were isolated and identified based on ITS sequences. Based on the closest match of BLAST search, 90 sequences were identified to species level. Ascomycetes showed higher occurrences in the beach sand samples compared to basidiomycetes. Only seven species of basidiomycetes were recovered from the beach sand samples. The total number of filamentous fungal genera identified was 50 with highest occurrences of Aspergillus (39.6 %) and Penicillium (17.6 %). Filamentous fungi from other genera were detected at a relatively low occurrences ranging from 0.3 to 3.4 %. The present study showed that beach sand harbours a variety of filamentous fungi which can be saprotrophic and potentially pathogenic. This study contributes to the knowledge on the occurrence and diversity of filamentous fungi in beach sand in Malaysia providing information for future researches that involve human, marine, and plant pathology.