New perspectives towards analysing fungal communities in terrestrial environments

Fungi play key roles in numerous ecosystem functions, and recent advances in the study of fungal diversity and ecology have led to a greater appreciation of this group of microeukaryotes. The application of a variety of nucleic acid techniques to fungal classification and phylogeny has led to a number of evolutionary insights, and has also begun to provide the necessary information for identification of unknown isolates and DNA sequences. These data, together with direct molecular characterisation of fungi in the field, provide new possibilities to describe fungal diversity and distribution. Such advances will no doubt also provide the means for a more detailed interpretation of ecological experiments.