Delimitation of Funga as a valid term for the diversity of fungal communities: the Fauna, Flora & Funga proposal (FF&F)

Abstract

As public policies and conservation requirements for biodiversity evolve there is a need for a term for the kingdom Fungi equivalent to Fauna and Flora. This need is considered to be urgent in order to simplify projects oriented toward implemention of educational and conservation goals. In an informal meeting held during the IX Congreso Latinoamericano de Micología by the authors, the idea of clarifying this matter initiated an extensive search of pertinent terminologies. As a result of these discussions and reviews, we propose that the word Funga be employed as an accurate and encompassing term for these purposes. This supports the proposal of the three Fs, Fauna, Flora and Funga, to highlight parallel terminology referring to treatments of these macrorganism of particular geographical areas. Alternative terms and proposals are acknowledged and discussed.

MycoNews 2021: President’s message, IMA statutes, news, reports, awards, personalia, and book news

“…Knudsen and Vesterholt 2008 ). It was most strongly advocated by Kuhar et al ( 2018 ) who discuss the origins and use. Arguments for and against were elaborated upon only last year by Zmitrovich ( 2020 ).…”

MycoNews 2020: President’s message, news, reports, awards, personalia, book news, and correspondence

“…This letter is intended to continue a discussion started in IMA Fungus pages, with contributions by Hawksworth ( 2010 ) and Kuhar et al ( 2018 ), who argued for a wider use of the term ‘funga’. They did this to provide a substitute term for ‘mycobiota’ in fields where the term ‘flora’ (or ‘mycoflora’) was previously used, particularly in biodiversity inventory and its biogeographic analysis, as well as applied fields.…”

“… Funga is a polysemantic word, not purely Latin, and a composite with the ending modified (as for ‘Flora’ and ‘Fauna’). Unlike ‘Flora’ and Fauna’, associated with a centuries-old tradition and referring to corresponding ancient deities, ‘Funga’ is not rooted in ancient mythology, even though Kuhar et al ( 2018 ) associated it with the goddess Diana. The term ‘Diana’ would therefore be more consistent with this logic, although it also does not refer to any tradition.…”

The Known, the Unknown, and the Expected: 130 Years of Research on Non-Lichenized Fungi and Fungus-Like Organisms in the Białowieża Primeval Forest, Poland

“…This statement is well supported by the statistics provided by Karasiński [39] and Kujawa and co-workers [11,40] for macromycetes: species listed in BPF account for ca. 25% of the European funga and 42% of the Polish funga (the term "funga" is used following the recommendation of Kuhar et al [41]). Moreover, BPF is the only place of occurrence for almost 200 species in Poland, and for some of them, also in Europe [11].…”