ABSTRACT
Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
11.1 INTRODUCTION
Fungi are one of the most phylogenetically and functionally diverse life-forms of terrestrial ecosystems; they are dominant pathogens, symbionts, and decomposers. There may be more than 1.5 million fungal species, of which only 5 to 10% have been identified so far (Hawksworth, 2001). Thus, most fungal diversity is unknown and undescribed. The study of fungal functional diversity, beyond rough classification into trophic categories, remains largely in its infancy. It will grow further through the development of genomics and proteomics on the foundation of molecular phylogenetic diversity that is now being constructed, albeit slowly (Figure 11.1). This review of the study of fungal diversity in the environment is intended for biologists interested in fungal molecular ecology and for fungal molecular ecologists interested in analytical tools beyond their particular expertise. We attempt to critically cover a wide variety of biochemical and molecular methods for fungal profiling, identification, and quantification, so that the reader can decide which are appropriate for his or her question. For reviews of fungal phylogenetics and fungal population genetics, see Berbee and Taylor (2001) and Carbone and Kohn (2004), respectively.
