Silke Van den Wyngaert

Silke's keynote title is: Zoosporic fungi – what can we gain by including them in our view of the planktonic world?

Let's go hunting for zoosporic fungi - commonly known as chytrids! Over the past decade, high-throughput sequencing studies have revealed the ubiquitous presence of chytrids and their regular dominance within pelagic fungal communities in freshwater and marine environments. These enigmatic organisms possess vast, yet largely unexplored, phylogenetic diversity and employ versatile lifestyle strategies that enable intricate interactions. These interactions, in turn, have cascading effects on plankton communities and energy flow in aquatic food webs. This talk provides an overview of the current understanding of chytrids in pelagic ecosystems while highlighting the challenges faced in studying them. Specifically focusing on their interaction with phytoplankton, I will address open questions and knowledge gaps regarding chytrid life history strategies. Moreover, I will explore how these strategies can potentially influence phytoplankton-chytrid dynamics and the occurrence of epidemic outbreaks observed in nature.