The importance of the mangrove ecosystem in terms of their export of plant detritus and
faunal biomass supporting oshore biological production is well documented (Lee, 1995).
Microbes are responsible for the transformation of the polymeric compounds into dissolved
or particulate organic matter utilizable by other consumers in the food web. These microbes
comprise the bacteria, the eumycotic fungi including the ascomycetes, the mitosporic fungi,
the chytrids, and the chromistan group which were formerly known as the oomycetes, the
labyrinthulids and the hyphochytrids (Hawksworth et al., 1995).