Fungal Diversity Associated with Posidonia oceanica  in Libya: A Comparative Review of Eastern and Western Coastal Records

Taher A. Elmasri

doi:10.64943/ljacs.2026.010211

Authors

Taher A. Elmasri Department of Biology, Faculty of Education, University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9975-2137

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.64943/ljacs.2026.010211

Keywords:

North Africa, Posidonia oceanica, marine fungi, beta diversity, Libya

Abstract

We compared the cultured fungal taxa reported from Posidonia oceanica on the eastern and western coasts of Libya, using the published records of two surveys that differed in sampling and isolation procedures. Only 5 of the 19 taxa recorded overall (the name-based union of both coasts’ lists) were reported from both regions, giving a Jaccard similarity of 26.3% and a corresponding Jaccard dissimilarity of 73.7%; this value describes name-based turnover between the two lists and should not be read as a formal beta-diversity turnover component unless a specific partitioning method is applied. Rhizomes supported the highest number of recorded taxa in the eastern dataset, whereas roots and rhizomes were tied for the highest richness in the western dataset. The difference between the coastal lists may reflect some combination of geography, tissue type, sampling effort and isolation method — particularly the contrast between wrack incubation and direct plating of surface-sterilised fresh tissue — although these factors cannot be disentangled from the available published data. Because both source studies relied primarily on morphological identification and used non-equivalent sampling designs, these results are best read as a preliminary comparison of cultured records rather than a standardised estimate of regional mycobiota diversity, pointing to a clear need for coordinated, molecularly supported surveys across North Africa.

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