Thailand’s amazing diversity: up to 96% of fungi in northern Thailand may be novel Kevin D. Hyde 1,2 • Chada Norphanphoun 2 • Jie Chen 3 • Asha J. Dissanayake 2 • Mingkwan Doilom 1,4,5 • Sinang Hongsanan 6,7 • Ruvishika S. Jayawardena 2 • Rajesh Jeewon 8 • Rekhani H. Perera 2 • Benjarong Thongbai 10 • Dhanushka N. Wanasinghe 1,4 • Komsit Wisitrassameewong 9 • Saowaluck Tibpromma 1,2,4 • Marc Stadler 10 Received: 8 October 2018 / Accepted: 14 November 2018 / Published online: 22 November 2018 Ó School of Science 2018 Abstract Fungi have been often neglected, despite the fact that they provided penicillin, lovastatin and many other important medicines. They are an understudied, but essential, fascinating and biotechnologically useful group of organisms. The study of fungi in northern Thailand has been carried out by us since 2005. These studies have been diverse, ranging from ecological aspects, phylogenetics with the incorportation of molecular dating, taxonomy (including morphology and chemotaxonomy) among a myriad of microfungi, to growing novel mushrooms, and DNA-based identification of plant pathogens. In this paper, advances in understanding the biodiversity of fungi in the region are discussed and compared with those further afield. Many new species have been inventoried for the region, but many unknown species remain to be described and/or catalogued. For example, in the edible genus Agaricus, over 35 new species have been introduced from northern Thailand, and numerous other taxa await description. In this relatively well known genus, 93% of species novelty is apparent. In the microfungi, which are relatively poorly studied, the percentage of novel species is, surprisingly, generally not as high (55–96%). As well as Thai fungi, fungi on several hosts from Europe have been also investigated. Even with the well studied European microfungi an astounding percentage of new taxa (32–76%) have been discovered. The work is just a beginning and it will be a daunting task to document this astonishingly high apparent novelty among fungi. Keywords Agaricus Á Amanita Á Colletotrichum Á Cornus Á Fungal diversity Á Pandanaceae Á Rosaceae Á Rosa Á Teak fungi Introduction Fungi are an incredibly understudied, but an essential, fascinating and biotechnologically useful group of organ- isms. The fungi of northern Thailand have been studied by Hyde and coworkers since 2005. The studies have been diverse, ranging across ecology, traditional taxonomy, phylogenetics, evolution, microbial community and chemotaxonomy (Thongkantha et al. 2008; Pinnoi et al. 2010; Phookamsak et al. 2015; Wurzbacher et al. 2017; Norphanphoun et al. 2018; Tedersoo et al. 2018), to growing novel mushrooms (Thongklang et al. 2014), molecular identification of endophytes and plant pathogens (Jayawardena et al. 2016b; Doilom et al. 2017b), and identification of entomophagous fungi (Xiao et al. 2017, 2018). Although there are many negative facets to fungi (see Hyde et al. 2018), they are an essential component of most ecosystems and without them there would be ecological imbalance, and possibly mankind would not survive on earth (Watkinson et al. 2015). They are major contributors to nutrient cycling, and the main organisms which can degrade lignocellulose in wood and leaves (Pointing et al. 2005; Bucher et al. 2004; Tang et al. 2005); without them we would live amongst mountains of dead trees (Gadd et al. 2007). Many species exist as symbionts with plants & Mingkwan Doilom j_hammochi@hotmail.com Extended author information available on the last page of the article 123 Fungal Diversity (2018) 93:215–239 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-018-0415-7