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. 2025 Oct 9;53(6):770-784.
doi: 10.1080/12298093.2025.2566528. eCollection 2025.

Exploring Fungal Diversity in Marine Plastic (PET) Wastes and Seafoam in Udo Island, South Korea, with Reports of Two New Species (Leptospora conidiifera and Neodevriesia oceanoplastica)

Wonjun Lee  1 , Sumin Jo  1 , Soo Hyun Maeng  2 , Ji Seon Kim  1 , Myung Kyum Kim  2 , Young Woon Lim  1
Affiliations

Exploring Fungal Diversity in Marine Plastic (PET) Wastes and Seafoam in Udo Island, South Korea, with Reports of Two New Species (Leptospora conidiifera and Neodevriesia oceanoplastica)

Wonjun Lee et al. Mycobiology. .

Abstract

Marine fungi play a crucial role in maintaining the ocean ecosystem functions by participating in organic matter degradation, carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles, and interactions with other marine organisms. Nevertheless, many marine habitats remain poorly explored for fungal diversity, as fungi have historically been overlooked in marine research. In this study, we investigated marine fungi in two underexplored coastal habitats (PET plastic waste and seafoam) collected from the intertidal zone of Udo Island, South Korea. A total of 88 fungal strains were isolated and identified as 45 taxa (22 taxa from PET waste and 24 from seafoam) based on multigene phylogenetic analysis and morphological characteristics. The distinct fungal communities recovered from PET plastic waste and seafoam highlight the ecological value of anthropogenic and ephemeral marine habitats. Among these, we report two novel species - Leptospora conidiifera sp. nov. and Neodevriesia oceanoplastica sp. nov. - along with five previously unrecorded marine fungi species in Korea. These findings suggest that the two habitats can serve as reservoirs of unique fungal biodiversity and marine fungi may play unrecognized roles in marine nutrient cycling and microbial interactions.

Keywords: Marine plastic waste; PET; marine fungi; seafoam; unexplored species.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Samples collected from the intertidal zone of Udo Island. Plastic (PET) wastes are shown in (a). Seafoam sampled from the sea surface is shown in (B).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Maximum likelihood trees of new species based on multigene analyses. Strains isolated in this study are in bold. Branches with 100% bootstrap value are indicated with thick lines. “T” refers to the type strain, and “ET” refers to the epi-type strain.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Maximum likelihood trees for unrecorded species based on multigene analyses. Strains isolated in this study are in bold. Branches with 100% bootstrap value are indicated with thick lines. “T” refers to the type strain, and “ET” refers to the epi-type strain.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Cultural morphologies for species described in this study.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Conidial morphologies for species described in this study. Scale bar: 10 μm.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Morphology of cells from SFC20250301-M001 incubated at 25 °C. The strain was grown on YPDA for 3 d. The colonies of Anthracocystis heteropogonicola SFC20250301-M001 (A) and the budding cells (B). Scale bars: 10 µm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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