Developing a comprehensive strategy for fungal conservation in Europe: current status and future needs

Abstract

We review the state of fungal conservation in Europe. Despite a large public interest in fungi, they are often insufficiently considered in the conservation initiatives of most countries and not adequately heeded in international biodiversity agreements. We attribute this to the generally low profile of fungi among conservation stakeholders and decision makers together with limited efforts of mycological scientists to put mycological knowledge into a conservation context. Recent advances in mycological knowledge, taxonomy, distribution, ecology and threats now categorically enable fungi to be included within national and European conservation agendas. 33 European countries have produced fungal Red-Lists reporting the status of macrofungi and these are official in 20 countries. These lists indicate that at least 10 % of European larger fungi are threatened, mainly due to changing land use and nitrogen deposition. Fungal biodiversity may benefit from many general conservation efforts, but many specific fungus values are also overlooked. We advocate increased interaction between scientists and conservation coordinators and practitioners, greater promotion of fungi and their conservation and ecosystem service values by mycologists, the production of a European fungal Red-List and the need to integrate fungi with animals and plants in conservation issues.

Introduction

Fungi are an important component of terrestrial ecosystems. They comprise a large proportion of species richness and are major contributors to key ecosystem processes. However, in contrast to the animal and plant kingdoms, fungi have been overlooked in nature conservation and are not included in any international biodiversity agreements. The reasons for this are largely historic; fungi have been considered a strange group of organisms, poorly understood and difficult to study due to their cryptic nature and frequently sporadic and often short-lived sporocarps.

Fungi constitute a separate Kingdom but share different aspects of their lifestyle, e.g., clonality, reproduction, longevity and dispersal, with other organisms. However, the combination of lifestyle characteristics is unique to fungi, and their cryptic nature continues to make the pattern and dynamics of fungal individuals and populations challenging to assess. Mycological knowledge, e.g., taxonomy, phylogenetics, distribution, ecology, population dynamic, genetics, interactions and impacts on ecosystem processes, has significantly increased during recent decades (e.g., Mueller et al., 2004, Spooner and Roberts, 2005, Smith and Read, 2008). On this basis we assert that, in practice, the time is ripe to raise the awareness of fungus conservation. Sporocarp distribution data and detailed ecological observations by field mycologists can now be combined with scientific studies to identify and rank the conservation status of many fungi to provide prioritized management recommendations.

Interest in fungus conservation has progressed substantially in Europe in recent decades (Moore et al., 2001, Senn-Irlet et al., 2007, Heilmann-Clausen and Vesterholt, 2008). Here, we present an overview of the state of fungal conservation in Europe up to 2009. Firstly, we discuss why and how fungi should be considered in conservation. We then summarize the state of fungal knowledge together with achievements and ongoing conservation activities. This review is largely based on a report by the European Council for Conservation of Fungi (ECCF) for the European Commission (Senn-Irlet et al. 2007). The report was a compilation of publications, expert knowledge and a synthesis of a questionnaire sent to mycologists in all European countries within the ECCF network in 2007. After discussing how conservation action can be achieved, particularly the value of red listing, we finally discuss challenges for mycologists. Since fungus conservation has hitherto dealt mainly with macrofungi, i.e., species having sporocarps at least 2 mm in diameter, irrespective of taxonomic affiliation, this review takes the same perspective. Lichens are traditionally and successfully dealt with separately by lichenologists (e.g. Church et al. 1996).