About the diversity of fungi

We do not intend to expand further on the topic of fungal biodiversity here because we prefer to concentrate on other aspects of the fungal contribution to the soil community, but if you wish to investigate fungal diversity further right now we recommend the following literature references (and the papers referenced in them). Many of these topics will be discussed later in this book.  

An, H., Lee, H.-Y., Shin, H., Bang, J.H., Han, S., Oh, Y.-L., Jang, K.-Y., Cho, H., Hyun, T.K., Sung, J., So, Y.-S., Jo, I.-H. & Chung, J.-W. (2021). Evaluation of genetic diversity and population structure analysis among germplasm of Agaricus bisporus by SSR markers. Mycobiology, 49 (4): 376-384. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/12298093.2021.1940746.

Antonelli, A., Fry, C., Smith, R.J., Simmonds, M.S.J., Kersey, P.J., Pritchard, H.W. and 204 others. (2020). State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2020. Kew, UK: Royal Botanic Gardens. Open access DOI: https://doi.org/10.34885/172.

Aptroot A, Cáceres MES, Johnston MK, Lücking R. (2016). How diverse is the lichenized fungal family Trypetheliaceae (Ascomycota: Dothideomycetes): a quantitative prediction of global species richness. Lichenologist, 48: 983-1011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0024282916000463.

Bass, D. & Richards, T.A. (2011). Three reasons to re-evaluate fungal diversity ‘on Earth and in the ocean’. Fungal Biology Reviews, 25: 159-164. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbr.2011.10.003.

Cheek, M., Nic Lughadha, E., Kirk, P., Lindon, H., Carretero, J. and 14 others. (2020). New scientific discoveries: plants and fungi. Plants People Planet, 2: 371-388. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10148.

Clubbe, C., Ainsworth, A.M., Bárrios, S., Bensusan, K., Brodie, J. and 33 others. (2020). Current knowledge, status, and future for plant and fungal diversity in Great Britain and the UK Overseas Territories. Plants People Planet, 2: 557-579. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10142.

Hawksworth, D.L., Hibbett, D.S., Kirk, P.M. & Lücking, R. (2016). (308–310) Proposals to permit DNA sequence data to serve as types of names of fungi. Taxon, 65: 899-900. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12705/654.31.

Hawksworth, D. L. & Lücking, R. (2017). Fungal diversity revisited: 2.2 to 3.8 million species. In: The Fungal Kingdom, (eds J. Heitman, B. Howlett, P. Crous, E. Stukenbrock, T. James & N.A.R. Gow), pp. 79-95. Washington, DC: ASM Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.FUNK-0052-2016.

Hibbett, D.S. (2016). The invisible dimension of fungal diversity. Science, 351: 1150-1151. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aae0380.

Hyde, K.D., Bussaban, B., Paulus, B., Crous, P.W., Lee, S., Mckenzie, E.H.C., Photita, W. & Lumyong, S. (2007). Diversity of saprobic microfungi. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16: 7–35. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9119-5.

Leavitt, S. D., Divakar, P. K, Crespo, A. & Lumbsch, H. T. (2016). A matter of time - understanding the limits of the power of molecular data for delimiting species boundaries. Herzogia, 29: 479–492. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13158/heia.29.2.2016.479.

Mora, C., Tittensor, D.P., Adl, S., Simpson, A.G.B. & Worm, B. (2011). How many species are there on Earth and in the ocean? PLoS Biology, 9: article e1001127. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127.

Mueller, G.M. & Schmit, J.P. (2007). Fungal biodiversity: what do we know? What can we predict? Biodiversity and Conservation, 16: 1-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9117-7.

Mueller, G.M., Schmit, J.P., Leacock, P.R. Buyck, B., Cifuentes, J., Desjardin, D.E., Halling, R.E, Hjortstam, K., Iturriaga, T., Larsson, K.-H., Lodge, D.J., May, T.J., Minter, D., Rajchenberg, M., Redhead, S.A., Ryvarden, L., Trappe, J.M., Watling, R. & Wu, Q. (2007). Global diversity and distribution of macrofungi. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16: 37-48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9108-8.

Nic Lughadha, E., Bachman, S.P., Leão, T.C.C., Forest, F., Halley, J.M. and 25 others. (2020). Extinction risk and threats to plants and fungi. Plants People Planet, 2: 389-408. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10146.

Paton, A., Antonelli, A., Carine, M., Forzza, R.C., Davies, N. and 17 others. (2020). Plant and fungal collections: current status, future perspectives. Plants People Planet, 2: 499-514. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10141.

Pearce, T.R., Antonelli, A., Brearley, F.Q., Couch, C., Campostrini Forzza, R. and 11 others. (2020). International collaboration between collections-based institutes for halting biodiversity loss and unlocking the useful properties of plants and fungi. Plants People Planet, 2: 515-534. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10149.

Schmit, J.P. & Mueller, G.M. (2007). An estimate of the lower limit of global fungal diversity. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16: 99-111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9129-3.

Schoch, C.L., Seifert, K.A., Huhndorf, S., Robert, V., Spouge, J.L., Levesque, C.A., Chen, W. & the Fungal Barcoding Consortium. (2012). Nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region as a universal DNA barcode marker for Fungi. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109: 6241-6246. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1117018109.

Shearer, C.A., Descals, E. Kohlmeyer, B., Kohlmeyer, J., Marvanová, L., Padgett, D., Porter, D., Raja, H.A., Schmit, J.P., Thorton, H.A. & Voglmayr, H. (2007). Fungal biodiversity in aquatic habitats. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16: 49-67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9120-z.

Simmonds, M.S.J., Fang, R., Wyatt, L., Bell, E., Allkin, B. and 7 others. (2020). Biodiversity and patents: overview of plants and fungi covered by patents. Plants People Planet, 2: 546-556. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10144.

Tedersoo, L., Bahram, M., Põlme, S., Kõljalg, U. et al. (2014). Global diversity and geography of soil fungi. Science, 346: article 1256688. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1256688.

Tedersoo, L., Bahram, M., Puusepp, R., Nilsson, R.H., James, T.Y. (2017). Novel soil-inhabiting clades fill gaps in the fungal tree of life. Microbiome, 5: article 42 (10 pp.). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-017-0259-5.

Truong, C., Mujic, A.B., Healy, R., Kuhar, F., Furci, G., Torres, D., Niskanen, T., Sandoval-Leiva, P.A., Fernández, N., Escobar, J.M., Moretto, A., Palfner, G., Pfister, D., Nouhra, E., Swenie, R., Sánchez-García, M., Matheny, P.B. & Smith, M.E. (2017). How to know the fungi: combining field inventories and DNA-barcoding to document fungal diversity. New Phytologist, 214: 913-919. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.14509.

Williams, C., Walsh, A., Vaglica, V., Sirakaya, A., da Silva, M. and 8 others. (2020). Conservation policy: helping or hindering science to unlock properties of plants and fungi. Plants People Planet, 2: 535-545. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10139.

A greater understanding of Earth’s biodiversity, coupled with the responsible stewarding of its resources, are among the most crucial aims and challenges of the Earth BioGenome Project as described in the following:

Lewin, H.A., Robinson, G.E., Kress, W.J., Baker, W.J., Coddington, J., Crandall, K.A., Durbin, R., Edwards, S.V., Forest, F., Gilbert, M.T.P., Goldstein, M.M., Grigoriev, I.V., Hackett, K.J., Haussler, D., Jarvis, E.D., Johnson, W.E., Patrinos, A., Richards, S., Castilla-Rubio, J.C., van Sluys, M.-A., Soltis, P.S., Xu, X., Yang, H. & Zhang, G. (2018). Earth BioGenome Project: Sequencing life for the future of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115: 4325-4333. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720115115.

See also the Earth BioGenome Project website at https://www.earthbiogenome.org/ and the Darwin Tree of Life Project at https://www.sanger.ac.uk/news/view/genetic-code-66000-uk-species-be-sequenced.

If you refer to Alan Rockefeller’s YouTube lecture describing his method of DNA barcoding and PCR testing for wild mushrooms [URL: https://youtu.be/JoltDnGYn3g] you’ll learn all you need to know to accomplish DNA barcoding for yourself in your home, car or bathtub (listen to the lecture!); [See also the following related URLS: https://wiki.counterculturelabs.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing, and https://mushroomobserver.org/ and https://facebook.com/groups/FungalSequencing].