MONITORING STRATEGIES FOR AQUATIC FUNGI BIODIVERSITY
A person sampling sediment on an Arctic shore.
Teppo Rämä/UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Teppo Rämä/UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Aquatic fungi (AF) are crucial in ecosystems as resources for higher trophic levels, as parasites that control animal and plant populations, and as decomposers and pathogens that control carbon and nutrient cycling. AF thereby contribute to all four categories of ecosystem services: i) regulating services, like leaf litter decomposition and the self-cleaning capacity of ecosystems; ii) supporting services, like nutrient cycling and bioindicators of environmental conditions; iii) provisioning services, notably metabolites and clean water; and iv) cultural services, particularly educational and inspirational values.
The new European project MoSTFun aims at reducing our knowledge gap on AF by adding these vital organisms to biodiversity monitoring programs.
WHAT IS MOSTFUN AND WHAT WILL IT DO
MoSTFun (Monitoring Strategies and Tools to address knowledge gaps on aquatic Fungal biodiversity) is funded through the Biodiversa+ EU Biodiversity Partnership and thus part of a new wave of innovations in biodiversity monitoring across Europe. Over the next three years, MoSTFun will develop the tools and knowledge needed to include aquatic fungi in biodiversity monitoring programs.
For this goal, MoSTFun unites scientists, biomonitoring experts and conservation professionals. It will perform new and specific sampling campaigns and reanalyze samples from existing biomonitoring programs, thereby mainly focusing on DNA-samples in both approaches. MoSTFun will establish collaborations with these biomonitoring programs to identify and use synergies but also to ensure that the tools and knowledge generated can be integrated in the very different types of existing monitoring programs. It will also closely interact with stakeholders and end-users to create the motivation and momentum to uptake of the tools and knowledge generated into biodiversity policy.
Test current monitoring programs and initiatives for their potential to include monitoring of aquatic fungi taxonomic and functional diversity.
Fill methodological knowledge gaps to make routine monitoring of aquatic fungi biodiversity possible and effective.
Develop datasets on aquatic fungi biodiversity from ongoing monitoring programs and expand them to understudied ecosystems (estuaries, coastal, (peri-)glacial ecosystems).
Integrate different data sources and technologies on AF biodiversity for predictive modelling and to develop Essential Biodiversity Variables for aquatic fungi.
Develop a stakeholder-accepted monitoring strategy at the European level through an Aquatic Fungi Knowledge-to-Action Hub.