Society for Conservation Biology
Newsletter
Volume 17, Issue 1 February 2010
Fighting For Fungi: Landmark Conservation Agreement
Is Reached
by L. Anathea Brooks
An international group dedicated to protecting the world’s diverse array of fungi has been formed as a
result of a groundbreaking meeting of high-profile scientists held from 26 to 30 October 2009 in Whitby,
United Kingdom. “Fungal Conservation: Science, Infrastructure, Politics” was convened by the European
Mycological Association under the auspices of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
with funding from the UK Darwin Initiative and the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. Over
30 participants hailed from 21 countries and all continents.
Fungi are essential to many ecosystem processes, are important symbionts of most plants and many animals
as well as being the major food for animals including flying squirrels, potoroos and bettongs. Further, they
are economically important as foods, medicines and in the biotechnology industry (Buchanan 2003). With
an estimated 1.5 million species of fungi, most still awaiting description (Hawksworth 1991), and
continuing decline in the number of mycologists due to restricted employment opportunities for
taxonomists, one challenge is to describe species which are still too poorly documented to tell if they are
endangered or not. Type localities for fungi, often the only locations rare fungi have ever been found, also
need conservation, preferably within larger reserves. Recently the IUCN created five Species Survival
Commission (SSC) specialist groups for fungi, reviving the defunct single specialist group for fungi. Fungi
are not plants, nor are all the organisms traditionally studied by mycologists on the basis of their shared
morphology, ecology and nutritional modes actually placed within kingdom fungi (Alexopoulos et al.
1996). Currently these widely varied organisms are placed by many taxonomists in Kingdom Chromista
(oomycota or water molds), the Protista (the different groups generically known as slime molds) as well as
Kingdom Fungi. Thus, the IUCN SSC now has expanded to cover far more than the two Kingdoms Plantae
and Animalae. Presentations by the Chairs of each new group covered future plans and called for new
members and group names that would better resonate with the general public: Mildews, Molds &
Myxomycetes; Rusts & Smuts; Non-lichen forming Ascomycetes and their Anamorphs; Mushrooms,
Toadstools and their Allies; and Lichens. Each specialist group is described with contact information at:
ups/fungi/.
A team from the IUCN SSC conducted a workshop on evaluating fungi on the basis of the IUCN Red List
criteria, and will incorporate feedback from the mycologists to make the criteria more pertinent to fungi and
other groups that do not readily enable easy estimation of population size or range, due to seasonal
visibility, scarce data on what constitutes an individual, and few experts available for identification
throughout a species’ range. In addition to exercises with specific species currently on the IUCN Red List,
such as the prized edible Pleurotus nebrodensis (Inzenga) Quél., found only in northern Sicily, attendees
also discussed specific fungal niches or habitats that are under threat, such as old-growth forest trees,
coastal dunes or nivicolous regions, as well as those species that already may demonstrate phenological or
range changes due to climate change.
Representatives of each regional fungal conservation group, or mycologists from those regions where such
groups do not yet exist, also made presentations, covering conservation status and national red lists, efforts
to create species distribution maps, strengthened links with amateur groups for data collection and
conservation, outcomes of new conservation legislation, the need for culture collections (similar in function
to plant seed banks) and public outreach to overcome the “bad press” of often uncharismatic, feared or
hidden organisms. While the European Council for the Conservation of Fungi dates to 1989, a similar arm
within the Mycological Society of America was only created in 2008, and at the Whitby meeting pledges
were made to create similar groups within Australasia and Africa. Participants further pledged to support a
new global federation of fungal conservation groups and to this end a steering committee was created,
which will be chaired by David Minter (d.minter@cabi.org), organizer of the Whitby meeting. The group’s
first task will be to develop a global strategy for fungal conservation. Proceedings of the meeting will be
published in a special issue of Mycologia Balcanica.
L. Anathea Brooks
Natural Sciences Sector, UNESCO, Paris, France
Literature Cited
Buchanan, P. K. 2003. Conservation of New Zealand and Australian
fungi. New Zealand Journal of Botany 41:407-421.
Hawksworth, D. L. 1991. The fungal dimension of biodiversity: magnitude,
significance, and conservation. Mycological Research 95(6):641-
644.
Alexopoulos, C. J., Mims, C. W. and Blackwell, M. 1996. Introductory
Mycology Fourth Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, NY. p. 62.
