Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
ABSTRACT Marine fungi have a crucial but little‐studied role in the dynamics of disease, holobiont stability and nutrient cycling in coral reef ecosystems. Despite having more than 1500 identified species, little is known about the ecological roles of marine fungi in comparison to bacteria and algae. Fungal populations live in the surrounding waters, sediments, bones, mucous and coral tissues. Ascomycota, Basidiomycota and Chytridiomycota are among the many phyla that they constitute. These fungi function as mutualists, pathogens, decomposers and bioindicators that influence coral health through food provisioning, antimicrobial activity and stress tolerance. However, when opportunistic species are subjected to environmental stress, they can exacerbate disease. Specifically, warming, acidification, eutrophication, pollution, hypoxia and sedimentation are environmental changes that impact fungal diversity and function. As a result, microbial networks become unstable and more pathogenic. Nutrient turnover and fungus‐mediated decomposition impact reef carbon fluxes and ecosystem structure, causing bioerosion and biodiversity loss. Present research is limited by inadequate functional validation, taxonomic and regional biases and a lack of understanding of multi‐stressor interactions, microbial networks and pathogen spreading pathways. This study highlights the critical roles that marine fungi play in disease dynamics, nutrient cycling and reef resilience by summarising the research on their interactions with coral. It identifies significant knowledge gaps in the context of global change and offers directions for integrative research that uses omics methods, experimental manipulation and predictive modelling to direct reef management and conservation.
Osei et al. (Sat,) studied this question.