Mini-review Developing a comprehensive strategy for fungal conservation in Europe: current status and future needs Anders DAHLBERG a,b, *, David R. GENNEY c , Jacob HEILMANN-CLAUSEN d a Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7007, S – 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden b Department of Forest Mycology and Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7026, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden c Scottish Natural Heritage, Great Glen House, Leachkin Road, Inverness, IV3 8NW, United Kingdom d HabitatVision, Skælskørvej 22, DK-4180 Sorø, Denmark article info Article history: Received 18 June 2009 Revision received 11 October 2009 Accepted 15 October 2009 Available online 4 January 2010 Corresponding editor: Lynne Boddy Keywords: Conservation Europe Macrofungi Management Red-List Threat abstract We review the state of fungal conservation in Europe. Despite a large public interest in fungi, they are often insufficiently considered in the conservation initiatives of most countries and not adequately heeded in international biodiversity agreements. We attri- bute this to the generally low profile of fungi among conservation stakeholders and deci- sion makers together with limited efforts of mycological scientists to put mycological knowledge into a conservation context. Recent advances in mycological knowledge, taxonomy, distribution, ecology and threats now categorically enable fungi to be included within national and European conservation agendas. 33 European countries have produced fungal Red-Lists reporting the status of macrofungi and these are official in 20 countries. These lists indicate that at least 10 % of European larger fungi are threatened, mainly due to changing land use and nitrogen deposition. Fungal biodiversity may benefit from many general conservation efforts, but many specific fungus values are also overlooked. We advocate increased interaction between scientists and conservation coordinators and practitioners, greater promotion of fungi and their conservation and ecosystem service values by mycologists, the production of a European fungal Red-List and the need to integrate fungi with animals and plants in conservation issues. ª 2009 Elsevier Ltd and The British Mycological Society. All rights reserved. Introduction Fungi are an important component of terrestrial ecosystems. They comprise a large proportion of species richness and are major contributors to key ecosystem processes. However, in contrast to the animal and plant kingdoms, fungi have been overlooked in nature conservation and are not included in any international biodiversity agreements. The reasons for this are largely historic; fungi have been considered a strange group of organisms, poorly understood and difficult to study due to their cryptic nature and frequently sporadic and often short-lived sporocarps. Fungi constitute a separate Kingdom but share different aspects of their lifestyle, e.g., clonality, reproduction, longevity and dispersal, with other organisms. However, the combination of lifestyle characteristics is unique to fungi, and their cryptic nature continues to make the pattern and dynamics of fungal individuals and populations challenging to assess. Mycological knowledge, e.g., taxonomy, phyloge- netics, distribution, ecology, population dynamic, genetics, * Corresponding author: Tel.: þ46 18 672745/þ46 70 3502745; fax: þ46 18 67 34 80. E-mail address: anders.dahlberg@artdata.slu.se (A. Dahlberg). available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/funeco 1754-5048/$ – see front matter ª 2009 Elsevier Ltd and The British Mycological Society. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.funeco.2009.10.004 fungal ecology 3 (2010) 50–64