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Table
13.1. Fungal contributions to Ecosystem Services you can find
in this book
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An ecosystem is defined as a dynamic complex of plant, animal,
and microorganism communities, together with the non-living
environment, interacting as a functional unit. Humans are an
integral part of ecosystems. Ecosystem services are the
benefits people obtain from ecosystems. Ecosystem services are
usually grouped into four broad categories, to which we have
added ecosystem goods, defined (in the left-hand column,
below) as follows: |
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Ecosystem Service category
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Fungal contributions
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See
Section |
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Provisioning such as the production of food,
water and other materials
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Food: this includes the vast range of food
products derived from plants, animals, and microbes. So, the
fungal contribution ranges from mushrooms of several different
sorts, morels and truffles, cultivated and collected, through
yeast extracts, mycoprotein (a filamentous fungus isolated
from field soil), and all those fermented foods (bread,
cheese, salami, soy sauce and other soya products, tempeh and
miso) but also including meats and dairy products because our
farm animals can’t digest grass without their anaerobic fungi.
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3.3
11.2 to
11.6
15.5
17.18
17.20
17.23
17.24
17.25
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And drink? Not usually mentioned, but where
would we be without beers, wines and spirits? The yeasts
deriving, even if in prehistory, from natural ecosystems.
Citric acid’s fizz and the preparation of fruit juices using
fungal enzymes are other contributions.
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17.13
17.14
17.16
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Materials such as wood, jute, hemp and many
other products are derived from ecosystems and depend on
plants, which all depend on mycorrhizal fungi to make their
roots work adequately.
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13.9 to
13.17
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Similarly, water supply depends on erosion
control, which needs vegetation for soil retention and the
prevention of landslides. Vegetation depends on mycorrhizal
fungi.
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13.9 to
13.17
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Climate regulation. Ecosystems influence climate by either sequestering or emitting
greenhouse gases. Wood
decay fungi have influence here by releasing
chlorohydrocarbon volatiles from timber, and by recycling C
and N from the soil. |
13.2
13.7
13.17
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Regulating such as the control of climate and
disease; can have impact on local or global climate over time
scales relevant to human decision-making (decades or
centuries)
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Water supply.
As mentioned above, changes in vegetation, such as conversion
of wetlands, the replacement of forests with croplands, or
croplands with urban areas, change the water storage potential
of the ecosystem. All of which depend on parallel changes in
mycorrhizal fungi.
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13.9 to
13.17
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Waste treatment. Ecosystems can be a source of impurities in water, but
fungal bioremediation
can decompose organic wastes introduced by agriculture and/or
industry into inland waters and coastal and marine ecosystems.
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13.2
13.6
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Regulation of animal and human
diseases. Changes in
ecosystems can directly change the abundance of pathogens,
leading to emerging
fungal infectious diseases that seriously endanger
clinical practices and threaten animal extinctions in nature.
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16.1 to
16.10
16.11
16.12
18.3
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Regulation of plant diseases.
Rarely specifically mentioned in these discussions, but fungal
diseases dominate in plants, potentially causing sweeping
damage to plants of the forest and urban environments (like
Dutch Elm Disease),
as well as crucial crop plants like rice and wheat.
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14.3 to
14.8
14.11
14.12
14.17
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Biological control. Fungal pathogens can
alter the abundance of crop and livestock pests and diseases. |
13.19
15.6
16.14
16.15
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Supporting services maintain the conditions
for life on Earth over extremely long times
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Prime
examples of supporting services are photosynthetic primary
production using CO2 and water, and photosynthetic
production of atmospheric oxygen. At least 90% of the
terrestrial plants that do this depend on
mycorrhizal fungi for their adequate nutrition.
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13.8 to
13.16
13.17
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Soil
formation is another long term supporting service to which
fungi contribute
their abilities to degrade and manipulate minerals, accumulate
metals, and the lichen
terrestrial pioneer primary producers, which are
mutualistic
associations made by fungi with algae and bacteria.
Polymers produced by the most widespread
mycorrhizal fungi (glomalin)
control the structure of mature soils
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1.2 to
1.8
6.8
13.3
13.18
17.22
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Nutrient
cycling is a continued supporting service provided by
fungi by their
ability to secrete
enzymes into ecosystems that can digest even the most
recalcitrant materials (like lignocellulose) to capture the
various nutrients those materials contain.
Mycorrhizal and
saprotrophic fungi
recycle major nutrients for later release by the former to
their plant associates, while the many
mycophagous animals
(small and large) benefit by eating the mycelia and fruit
bodies of both. Importantly,
fungi also
contribute to water cycling in ecosystems;
mycorrhizas are major suppliers of water to their hosts and
saprotrophs
translocate water over considerable distances. Section 14.10
shows how the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis, which assimilates atmospheric nitrogen
into organic compounds, makes use of molecular components
derived from the
arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal partner of the legume to
create its symbiotic interface. |
1.4 to
1.7
9.7
9.8
10.1 to
10.11
11.1
11.2
13.2
13.10
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Removal of
natural wastes (which means dead and dying organisms) from
ecosystems is an aspect of the nutrient cycling described in
the previous section. However,
contaminating wastes,
which are mostly the result of human activities can be
recycled by fungi
because they are so adept at producing degradative enzymes.
The process is generally called
bioremediation.
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10.1 to
10.11
13.6
17.22
17.26
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Cultural
such as spiritual and recreational benefits
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Contributions of fungi to human cultural activities extend
into prehistoric times. Without
anaerobic fungi to
digest the grass they eat there would be no large herbivores
to provide skins for clothes, horn for tools or sinews for
prehistoric bows and for binding flint arrow heads, handles to
blades or spear points to spears. So not much hunting, though
there would still be
mushrooms to gather. |
3.3
11.3
15.5
17.20
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The
Neolithic traveller known as ‘Ötzi the Tyrolean Iceman’ had three
separate fungal
products among his equipment; one was clearly used as
tinder, the others possibly medicinal. Psychotropic fungi have
been used since ancient times for mystical purposes by witch
doctors and shamans. |
11.3
13.4
16.13
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‘Flowers
used as ornaments’ are normally included in this category. One
of the largest families of flowering plants, and arguably the
most ornamental, are the
orchids. Orchid
seedlings are non-photosynthetic and depend on the
endomycorrhizal fungus
partner for carbon sources; seedling stage orchids can be
interpreted as parasitising the fungus. |
13.9
13.14 |
Ecosystem goods
This category depends on biodiversity as the source of many
such goods
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All plant
materials that serve as sources of energy (wood, dung, other
biomass fuels) depend on
mycorrhizal fungi
enabling the plant to grow in the first place. |
13.9 to
13.17
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Increasingly, yeast
fermentation of agricultural wastes is being used for fuel
alcohol production. |
17.13
17.22
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Many of
today’s most widely used
pharmaceuticals
were ‘found by accident’ as
products of fungi
in natural ecosystems and then developed into industrial
chemicals for global use. Traditional medicines (including
nutraceuticals)
also derive from fungi
collected from natural ecosystems and now cultivated
commercially. |
17.15
17.19
18.1 to
18.4
18.14
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Many
industrial products,
fine biochemicals, biocides, food additives, and
enzymes for processing food and other goods, have been
developed from metabolites originating from
fungi isolated from
natural ecosystems.
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17.14
17.16
18.14
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Production
of all natural fibres depends on
fungi providing
nutrition to the organism that makes the fibre; industrial
processing, laundering and conditioning of fabrics made from
such fibres depends on
fungal enzymes. |
11.3
11.6
17.16
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Foods
depending on
fermentation (with a
variety of fungi)
resulted from traditional use of microbes from natural
ecosystems. The foods include mycoprotein, soya foods, tempeh,
miso, ang-kak. |
17.18
17.25
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Genetic
resources are included in this category. This includes all
genetic information used in strain breeding and biotechnology.
It’s also worth remembering that we must thank
research with yeast
for most of what we know about eukaryote cell biology,
genetics and molecular biology. |
18.5 to
18.13
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The final
topic in this category is usually ‘Storm Protection’. It’s not
obvious how fungi can contribute to this, but the normal
explanation is that coral reefs can dramatically reduce the
damage caused by hurricanes or large waves, so a negative
impact of fungi could be
aspergillosis disease
of coral. |
16.8
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