AustLit

'Global biodiversity faces unprecedented challenges in the 21st century and beyond. Anthropogenic agitations now threaten to irreversibly destabilise the natural world. Despite precautionary urgings by the scientific community, the polarised moiety of environment adherents and dissidents prevails. The endurance or extirpation of species relies on both adaptability and intervention. This essay considers these pressing concerns by focusing on the role of fungi within wider ecosystems. The Kingdom Fungi is one group of sentient biota which understatedly drives ecosystem dynamics and the subsistence of larger organisms, yet whose members remain largely foreign to us. The essay explores the longstanding physical, cultural and historical inter-relationships between humans and fungi and their enduring role in human survival and development. Research indicates that fungi possess qualities which may well serve to ameliorate our errors of judgment and resulting ecological impacts yet paradoxically, the future of fungi could be imperiled by such human impacts. Two future scenarios are proposed and it is argued that if these diminutive organisms are as susceptible to environmental degradation and restructuring as flora and fauna, what prospects for perpetuity do our habitats face?'  (Publication abstract)