The “aquatic phycomycetes” constitute an ecologically and economically important assemblage of eukaryotic microorganisms, because they share many morphological traits and important ecological functions and they interact with each other in aquatic ecosystems. The last two decades of research have provided both molecular and structural evidence that the “aquatic phycomycetes” are a diverse, polyphyletic grouping and therefore not a valid taxonomic entity. Very little research has been conducted for many years with the “aquatic phycomycetes”, possibly because in general these microorganisms are often hard to isolate and maintain in most laboratory facilities, little background data has been available to identify the species, the studies were time consuming, the state of the art technology in many cases did not permit studies on these groups and they were thought to be economically and ecologically unimportant. However, this perception has changed recently. For example, some of these species (1) are now known to play important roles in biomass conversion and sequestration of CO₂, (2) are parasites of many fungal, plant and animal species, (3) may harbor genes of important enzymes for industrial applications and (4) can serve as indicator species for eco-tox monitoring. This review discusses the assemblages of microorganisms which Sparrow placed into the aquatic phycomycetes, their history in brief and their current phylogenetic placement.

“水生藻生体”构成了真核微生物在生态和经济上重要的组合，因为它们具有许多形态特征和重要的生态功能，并且在水生生态系统中相互影响。最近的二十年研究提供了分子和结构方面的证据，表明“水生藻类”是一个多元化的多元族群，因此不是有效的生物分类实体。多年来对“水生藻生菌”进行的研究很少，可能是因为通常这些微生物通常很难在大多数实验室设施中分离和维持，几乎没有可用于鉴定该物种的背景数据，研究费时，在许多情况下，最先进的技术不允许对这些人群进行研究，并且认为它们在经济和生态上都不重要。但是，这种看法最近已经改变。例如，现在已知其中一些物种（1）在生物量转化和CO封存中起重要作用₂，（2）是许多真菌，植物和动物物种的寄生虫，（3）可能包含重要的酶基因以用于工业应用，并且（4）可以用作生态毒物监测的指示物种。这篇综述讨论了麻雀放进水生藻类中的微生物的组成，它们的历史以及目前的系统发育。