The Importance Of Fungal Conservation

When we mention the word “conservation”, the first thought that ever comes to our mind is that several efforts must be done in order to protect a specific species from extinction. As a matter of fact, conservation is undeniably a major concern at the moment for the naturalists due to the general decline in natural habitats. When mycologists detected a significant a decline in the number of species of fungi in the 1960s in several European countries, it appeared to us that fungi will one day become an endangered species if no action is being taken to overcome the decrement in the species of fungi. Therefore, fungal conservation is truly important and it is relevant to maintain and improve biodiversity to a better level.

Why are fungi so important

This is mainly because micro-organisms appear to have the reproductive capabilities to produce enormous numbers of populations in very little time. It may be true that the reproduction process of microbial species is less time and energy consuming, and yet, does that mean the microbial species are not threatened at all? To be realistic, this is a superficial understanding and the belief that microbial species are not harmed is rather

There are mainly two types of conservation, namely in situ conservation and ex situ conservation. Particularly for in situ conservation, the most important tools for fungal conservation are to conserve their natural habitats as well as mycological reserves and also ecological corridors. For in situ conservation on mycological reserves, it promotes habitats conservation which are specifically valuable for fungi as well as which are already considered not for conservation. Such reserves for instance, already existed in some European countries and many remains to be done with regard to the desirable size of such mycological reserves in order to prove to be efficient for the populations of fungi. Similarly for in situ conservation with ecological corridors, it is in relation to problems of habitats fragmentation. That is to say, biological corridors have strong positive effects on the survival and also on the restoration of various plants and animals populations. Therefore, it is very likely that biological corridors may also have positive effect on populations of fungi. Likewise, ex situ conservation programs can be developed especially for saprotrophic species growing in culture. One of the good examples of this conservation has been shown for Pleurotus nebrodensis in Sicily, and this possibility has brought up great importance for those