ABSTRACT
Terms used to describe interspecific interactions are not clear for many reasons. Mycologists have frequently borrowed terms from general ecology to describe interspecific interactions, yet descriptions are not completely applicable to fungi in many instances. Within the field of mycology, many terms are too specific even to be applied to all fungi. Both fungal ecology and general ecology terminology have inherent problems, such as an incongruent combination of mechanisms and outcomes within a set of terms, making it difficult to compare interactions. Other ambiguities that need to be resolved, specifically, are those between descriptions of interactions involving nutrient acquisition and those of direct, nonnutrient-related interactions. Difficulties arise in application of general ecology terminology to fungal ecology because fungi are sedentary, indeterminate organisms. Some general ecology terms imply motility or net effects, such as death, that could be avoided by indeterminate growth. Consistently applied terms with broad enough definitions to apply across all fields within ecology would be most useful, though it is recognized that more exact characterization of interactions can be achieved by adding descriptors that are specific to a field of ecology to the broadly defined terms.
