Understanding Variability and Complexity of Airborne Fungal Edna

Abstract Recent advances in airborne environmental DNA (eDNA) passive sampling methodologies and their successful application in monitoring terrestrial plant and animal biodiversity have sparked growing research interests in extending this technique to fungal community surveys. Yet concerns have been raised that inherent disparities between fungi and macroorganisms may create divergent temporal representation of airborne eDNA, with fungal eDNA prone to distinctive accumulation dynamics. While fungi differ substantially from macroorganisms in the production, dispersal and environmental persistence of their propagules, fungal spores exhibit striking similarities to pollen from wind‐pollinated plants in multiple key characteristics. Such parallelisms enable the transfer of empirical and methodological insights from airborne eDNA‐based plant community monitoring to fungal research. Previous temporal analyses of airborne plant eDNA have demonstrated that even with continuous pollen accumulation on passive samplers, airborne eDNA can capture near‐real‐time variations in plant pollination activities. This pattern implies that newly deposited biological materials can obscure legacy eDNA signals, thereby supporting high‐resolution tracking of species phenological dynamics. Notably, the correlation between airborne fungal eDNA and actual community composition can be modulated by fungal functional traits, atmospheric processes and diverse environmental conditions. Future investigations targeting airborne fungal eDNA across varied temporal sampling windows will deepen our mechanistic understanding of the relationships between aerial eDNA signals and their corresponding biological sources.