Dr. Eva Breyer | 真菌在全球海洋循环中的角色

Dr. Eva Breyer is a postdoctoral fellow at Shanghai Ocean University, where she investigates the ecological and biogeochemical roles of pelagic fungi in the global ocean. She received her PhD in Biology at the University of Vienna in 2024, following an MSc in Ecology & Ecosystems and a BSc in Biology from the same institution. Despite her short academic career, she has 12 published articles with an H-index of 7 and 164 citations. Her research integrates microbial oceanography, molecular ecology, and biogeochemistry to understand how fungi contribute to organic matter cycling, biomass distribution, and ecosystem functioning in marine systems, by integrating field observations, laboratory experiments, and genomic approaches. She is currently one of the leading experts in marine pelagic fungal research, having pioneered quantitative assessments of fungal biomass in the global ocean and contributed to redefining the ecological role of fungi in marine ecosystems. Dr. Breyer has participated in multiple research cruises across the Atlantic and Southern Ocean and has published in several high-impact journals, including Cell, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Nature Communications, Microbiome, among others. She has presented her research at 27 international conferences, and received best presentation honors in South Korea and Malaysia. She has also chaired 4 sessions on marine pelagic fungi at the ASLO 2023 (USA), OSM 2026 (Scotland), XMAS 2025 (China) and EBUS 2022 (Peru) conferences. She was granted the China Postdoctoral science Foundation research funding, and received the Shanghai Super Postdoctoral Incentive Award.

Marine fungi (mycoplankton) have long been overlooked in the ocean, yet recent evidence reveals their ubiquitous presence and active roles in the global ocean. This talk synthesizes recent advances that establish pelagic fungi as ecologically significant components of marine microbial communities, presenting the current state of knowledge. In a recent global assessment of pelagic fungal biomass combining multiple quantification techniques, we showed that fungi contribute 0.32 Gt C to open-ocean biomass—exceeding that of archaea. Complementary physiological characterization of cultured isolates reveals broad environmental tolerances and metabolic traits that support their widespread distribution. Additionally, a global-ocean multi-omics analysis of fungal-affiliated peptidases demonstrated that fungi are active contributors to protein degradation, with distinct depth partitioning between surface and mesopelagic layers that contrasts with prokaryotic patterns, suggesting distinct ecological niches. Collectively, this presentation will show that pelagic fungi are not merely transient residents but active and substantial contributors to microbial biomass and marine biogeochemical cycles, warranting their inclusion in ocean biogeochemical models.

Marine fungi (mycoplankton) have long been overlooked in the ocean, yet recent evidence reveals their ubiquitous presence and active roles in the global ocean. This talk synthesizes recent advances that establish pelagic fungi as ecologically significant components of marine microbial communities, presenting the current state of knowledge. In a recent global assessment of pelagic fungal biomass combining multiple quantification techniques, we showed that fungi contribute 0.32 Gt C to open-ocean biomass—exceeding that of archaea. Complementary physiological characterization of cultured isolates reveals broad environmental tolerances and metabolic traits that support their widespread distribution. Additionally, a global-ocean multi-omics analysis of fungal-affiliated peptidases demonstrated that fungi are active contributors to protein degradation, with distinct depth partitioning between surface and mesopelagic layers that contrasts with prokaryotic patterns, suggesting distinct ecological niches. Collectively, this presentation will show that pelagic fungi are not merely transient residents but active and substantial contributors to microbial biomass and marine biogeochemical cycles, warranting their inclusion in ocean biogeochemical models.