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The Role of Marine Fungi in Degradation of Microplastic and Plastics – a Review
Summary
This review examines the role of marine fungi in the biodegradation of microplastics and bulk plastics, synthesising literature on over 400 known plastic-degrading microorganism species and highlighting the most significant fungal groups capable of decomposing plastic materials in marine environments.
Plastic has become an essential and fundamental necessity worldwide. Currently, global plastic production exceeds 300 million tons per year. Plastics possess various attributes, such as cost-effectiveness, inertness, relatively low weight, and resistance to accumulating as waste in the environment. In the entirety of 2015, the world generated 6.3 billion tons of plastic waste, with 79% either disposed of in landfills or left in the natural environment. Furthermore, projections indicate that approximately 12 billion tons of plastic waste will accumulate on Earth by 2050. Consequently, there is a pressing need to develop an efficient plastic biodegradation process that can expedite the natural rate of plastic decomposition. Researchers have identified over 400 species of microorganisms capable of breaking down plastic. The existing literature provides a comprehensive list of previously documented plastic-degrading fungi and highlights the most significant fungal groups involved in this process. Moreover, a phylogenetic analysis of plastic-degrading fungi was conducted using a dataset that included ITS, LSU, SSU, TEF, RPB1, and RPB2 sequences from 395 strains. The findings confirm that plastic-degrading fungi span 11 fungal classes, including Ascomycetes (Dothideomycetes, Eurotiomycetes, Leotiomycetes, Saccharomycetes, and Sordariomycetes), Basidiomycetes (Agaricomycetes, Microbotryomycetes, Trimellomycetes, and Sordariomycetes), and Mucoromycetes.