Research Projects

Anaerobic fungi are unique microbes that play a crucial role in digesting ingested fibrous feed-in herbivores. They evolved around 66 million years ago, coinciding with the evolution of grasses and mammalian transition from insectivory to herbivory. Despite their importance, studies on anaerobic fungi have primarily focused on their role in ruminant nutrition. Few labs in India and globally study anaerobic fungi, and their taxonomy and phylogeny have remained ambiguous. Two genera of anaerobic fungi have been discovered, with 14 of them discovered in the last decade. High-throughput culture-independent studies have documented their presence in various animal guts, including ruminant foregut, pseudo-ruminant foregut, non-ruminant foregut, and hindgut fermenters. However, no culture-independent study has been undertaken to understand the distribution of anaerobic fungi in India. Different factors influencing the diversity and distribution of anaerobic fungi need to be studied in wild, captive, or domesticated herbivores. The culturing of anaerobic fungi in India has remained limited to domestic ruminants and a few zoos or foregut ruminants. The study aims to investigate the distribution of anaerobic fungal diversity across animal gut types, fermentation locations, habitats, and agro-climatic zones. The study also seeks to document culturable, yet-uncultured, yet-unculturable, and novel/unique taxa of anaerobic fungi using both culture-independent and -dependent approaches.