Fungi and the Sixth Extinction

Dear Colleagues,

Natural disasters have caused previous episodes of mass extinctions of Earth’s biota, with major impacts in the form of dramatic climate changes. 

Our current extinction episode is different, as climate change has been caused by one of the constituent species of the planet’s biome: us, Homo sapiens. However, the mechanism remains the same, with the world’s climatic change being the agent for the current reduction in biodiversity, although the details of the process vary among ecosystems. Some groups of organisms and ecosystems have obtained a measure of public recognition of this process, such as the coral reefs and the rainforests and their inhabitants. 

Fungi, in contrast, have not been extensively discussed in extinction contexts. This is a serious shortcoming, particularly because of the important role that fungi play in most ecosystems as symbionts, parasites, and saprobes. This Special Volume aims to present reviews and case studies that demonstrate the effects of the Sixth Extinction on fungal diversity and the resulting consequences in a multitude of ecosystems for the biodiversity of our planet. 

The Special Issue will focus on the following topics:

1. The extinction of lichen diversity and the curtailing of lichen vegetation caused by air pollution, agricides, and climate change; 
2. The loss of diversity in agriculture by way of changed land use (transition from grazing to barn crop-fed animal husbandry), monoculture, the genetic attenuation of crops, the use of alien species as crops, and the genetic modification of crops; 
3. The loss of diversity in forestry via the mass-scale substitution of native forest trees, clear-felling practices, the use of alien species in forests, fungal diversity in exotic plantations, forest fertilization, the genetic attenuation of forest trees, and the genetic modification of forest trees.

Symbioses (reviews):

forest destruction and loss of mycorrhizal diversity; agriculture and the loss of fungal diversity; loss of fungal diversity in aquatic habitats, particularly coral reefs and as algal endosymbionts; loss of lichen diversity due to climate change, air pollution, and agriculture; fungal diversity and climate change

Habitat destruction (case studies):

fungal diversity loss as a consequence of forest management; fungal diversity loss and industrial waste; fungal diversity loss and pastoral management; fungal diversity loss and climatic change; fungal diversity loss and aquatic habitat degradation

Prof. Dr. Leif Tibell
Dr. Sanja Tibell
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Fungi is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.