10 Fungal Diversity in the Fossil Record

Abstract

Although there have been scattered reports of fossil fungi and funguslike organisms for more than 150 years, fungi have been largely ignored when interpreting the complexity and functioning of terrestrial paleoecosystems. To a large degree this is because fungi were long thought to be too delicate to be sufficiently preserved, and those who might discover them demonstrated insufficient interest and did not possess the appropriate training. Some of the methods traditionally used in the study of fossils have also contributed to a lack of recognition of the diversity of fungi in the fossil record. Today the importance of fungi as major constituents of ecosystem function is a primary focus of mycology. As a result, there has been a paradigm shift in the appreciation of the fungal world in time and space, including fungal diversity in ancient ecosystems. This chapter includes examples of fossil fungi from each of the major lineages and describes our current level of information about their morphology, biology, and evolution. It also provides some directions for future studies of fossil fungi and identifies some questions that only the fossil record can answer.