Fungal functional ecology: How functional traits shift across ecological strategies

Background/Question/Methods: Fungal diversity is extremely high but new avenues of research are providing increasing insight into fungal functional ecology. We recently released a novel fungal trait database Fun^Fun and explored how plant-associated fungal ecology varies across different fungal guilds. These guilds include endophytes, pathogens, saprotrophs, and mycorrhizal fungi. We ask what is known, unknown and pathways for moving forward for understanding fungal functional ecology.

Results/Conclusions: We found that many fungal taxa are able to move among different guilds. We also find that particular traits, especially molecular and chemical, are associated with a given guild. What remains unclear is whether these traits shift with guild shifts for a given species. Additionally, many plant-associated fungi maintain particular traits inherited from the ancestors to be able to interact with plants. As we add to fungal databases, to better understand fungal functional ecology, we will need to make sure databases are easily discoverable and records can be linked. We predict that this will lead to rapid growth in what we know about fungal functional ecology and evolution and how these fungi affect biogeochemical cycling.