Fungi in soda and saline environments. soda and saline soil

The main purpose of the project is to study extremophilic fungi, in particular, a rare group of fungi resistant to high pH values. A targeted search and isolation in pure culture of alkali-resistant fungi from various natural substrates (water, cyanobacterial mats, biofilms, remains of dead plants and animals, soils around lakes, bottom sediments, etc.) will be carried out at soda and saline lakes. The development of the metagenomic approach will clarify the hidden diversity of fungi in such ecosystems. Cultivated alkaliphilic and alkalitolerant fungi will be characterized based on morphological, genetic (ITS, LSU, SSU, RPB2, TEF1-a, etc.) and physiological traits. The obtained results will be important both for fundamental science (expanding the knowledge about extremophilic eukaryotes and their role in natural biotopes) and for applied areas, due to important biotechnological potential of extremophilic fungi.