Egypt’s national fungus day
Journal Title: Microbial Biosystems Journal - Year 2017, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has recognized that fungal conservation is just as important as animal and plant conservation, and has called on governments worldwide to pay much more attention to fungal conservation. Fungi are different from animals and plants. Since at least 1970, scientists have agreed that fungi belong in their own separate biological kingdom which is likely to contain far more species than the plant kingdom. Where plants produce and animals consume, fungi are the recyclers. Fungi are just as much threatened as animals and plants by climate change, habitat destruction, invasives, pollution, over-exploitation and even, in some cases, persecution. Habitats important for threatened fungi may be different from habitats important for threatened animals and plants. Biodiversity can only be conserved if the well-being of fungi is given as much consideration as that of animals and plants: without fungi life on earth would be unsustainable. Fungi provide enormously important ecosystem services (e.g. soil fertility, mycorrhizas, crop protection, litter decomposition, checks and balances). The economic value of such services has been estimated as running to trillions of US dollars. Fungi are also a very important source of unusual chemicals of great value in industry and medicine. The yeast used to make bread is a fungus, and many pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics, statins and anti-cancer drugs are derived from fungi. Compared with many animals and plants, very little is known about fungi. That knowledge gap needs to be explicitly recognized and plans should be prepared to deal with that gap. In 2014 and 2016 Abdel-Azeem the founder of Arab Society for Fungal Conservation (ASFC) proposed a good candidate for celebration of Egypt’s National Fungus Day on the 20th of February. Abdel-Azeem with the help of international societies, agencies and mycologists decreed the Egypt’s National Fungus Day in Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the 20th of February 2016 for the first time.
Authors and Affiliations
Abdel-Azeem AM
Keywords
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