Advances in Research on Ancient Terrestrial Fungi

Dear Colleagues,

We intend to focus on recent progress in the research on early diverged terrestrial fungal lineages for this Special Issue. Previously regarded as monophyletic, these fungi are an assemblage of two evolutionarily independent groups: Mucoromycota comprises mostly saprotrophs, degrading dead organic sources for nutrition. Zoopagomycota contains important animal pathogens, animal commensals, and saprotrophs. Recent progress in new-generation sequencing (NGS) is resolving the phylogenetic position of different levels of these taxonomic groups, starting with species and ending with the evolutionary trajectories of all terrestrial lineages. In addition to evolutionary questions, significant progress with these early diverged fungal lineages has been made in the research on bacterial–fungal endosymbioses, commensalism, pathogenicity, and understanding metabolic pathways.

Because of the rapid progress of NGS and the availability today of extensive molecular, genomic, and transcriptomic data, we have witnessed considerable advances in the research on these early diverged, terrestrial fungal lineages, many of which were previously included in the phylum Zygomycota. Our goal is to assemble the current knowledge about these fungi from applications of modern research methods and from much-needed syntheses. We aim to describe these advances from various perspectives, which include, but are not limited to, evolution, phylogeny, taxonomy, biochemistry, metabolic pathways, bioinformatics, plant–animal–microbial interactions, and microbial communities.

Our focus is on the latest progress in the research on early diverging terrestrial fungal lineages. The areas we would like to cover in this Special Issue include the following:

• Genomics and transcriptomics used in the fungal tree of life;
• Mucoro- and entomophthoromycoses of animals and humans;
• Commensalism with arthropods;
• Population genetics of “lower” fungi;
• Bacterial endosymbionts of Mucoromycota;
• Interactions of “lower” fungi in biotic communities.

We are primarily interested in original research articles; however, reviews and perspective articles are also welcome.

Dr. Andrii P. Gryganskyi
Prof. Dr. Ann Hajek
Guest Editors

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