Fungi Functional 'Omics
The fungal kingdom sits taxonomically separated from plants and animals. They have unique characteristics including structure, metabolites, nutritional properties and ecological functions. Globally, currently 148,000 species of fungi are recognised, the majority in the phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. The vast majority of the total estimated 2.2-3.8 million fungal species, over 90%, are currently unknown to science. The majority of the knowledge on the species in Australia stems from alignment of species commonly thought to have originated, or be analogues to northern hemisphere fungal species. Australian mycologists have attempted to study native fungi relying primarily on classical morphology, which has often led to the incorrect identification of taxa or identification by alignment to northern hemisphere taxa. The generation of omics data will enable the discovery of native fungal functions that may provide new avenues for emerging industries, in particular for native foods or to demonstrate provenance of foods, biologically active discoveries, biomaterial engineering, land restoration, waste management and circular economies. Additionally, characterising organisms, substrates and growth environments could accelerate the development of fungal based products or processors while, simultaneously, benefitting basic microbiological science and the engineering of biological systems.
Additional Info
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| acknowledgement_url | https://bioplatforms.com/projects/fungi/ |
| dataset_url | https://data.bioplatforms.com/organization/fungi |
| info_url | https://bioplatforms.com/projects/fungi/ |
| methods_url | https://bioplatforms.com/projects/fungi/ |
| policy_url | https://bioplatforms.com/projects/fungi/ |