Evolution of Fungi and Fungal-Like Organisms

0580385 - MBÚ 2024 RIV CH eng M - Monography Chapter
Baldrian, Petr - Kohout, Petr - Větrovský, Tomáš
Global Fungal Diversity Estimated from High-Throughput Sequencing.
Evolution of Fungi and Fungal-Like Organisms. Cham: Springer Nature, 2023 - (Pöggele, S.; James, T.), s. 227-238. The Mycota. ISBN 978-3-031-29198-2
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA21-17749S
Institutional support: RVO:61388971
Keywords : Fungal diversity * High-throughput sequencing * Metabarcoding * Biogeography * Fungal ecology
OECD category: Microbiology
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-29199-9_10

Fungi are key players in vital ecosystem services, spanning carbon cycling, decomposition, and varied plant symbioses. Due to their cryptic lifestyle, it was difficult to assess their diversity until the advent of methods of high-throughput sequencing. Based on the papers utilizing high-throughput sequencing approaches to study fungi in natural habitats using the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) contained in the public open database GlobalFungi (https://globalfungi.com), the current estimate of global fungal diversity is 6.3 million species, considering 97% sequence similarity as a species-level threshold. Of the observed fungi, most belong to Ascomycota and Basidiomycota: 57% and 37% of taxa, respectively. Soil and litter represent the habitats with the highest alpha diversity of fungi followed by air, plant shoots, plant roots, and deadwood. Based on the high-throughput sequencing data, the highest proportion of unknown fungal species is associated with samples of lichen and plant tissues. Climate was identified as the key driver of fungal biogeography. In contrast to plants and most other taxa, fungal diversity in tropics appears to be lower than at high latitudes. Despite limitations, the use of high-throughput sequencing is an important tool for the assessment of diversity, biogeography, and ecology of fungi.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0349162