Mysterious fungi: Researchers pinpoint hotspots of “dark taxa” across Earth’s underground ecosystems
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summary
Please note: this summary is intended for a general audience. Please refer to the paper itself for further information.
New study finds that 83% of ectomycorrhizal fungi are known only by their DNA sequences that can’t be linked to named or described species, posing problems for conservation.
Published in Current Biology, the findings revealed that only 155,000 of the roughly 2-3 million fungal species on the planet have been formally described.
The team uncovered that dark taxa of ectomycorrhizal fungi are not spread evenly across the Earth, with significant concentrations of dark taxa in tropical regions like Southeast Asia and parts of South America and Africa, highlighting the need for more research and funding to explore these underground ecosystems.
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