Soil microbiomes are critical for ecosystem functioning, yet the global influences of climate and agricultural practices on their diversity and structure remain incompletely characterized. Here we analyzed 1921 soil samples from 33 countries worldwide across diverse biomes to assess how climate gradients and agricultural inputs, including pesticides and fertilizers, shape prokaryotic and fungal communities. We found that microbial diversity peaks at intermediate temperatures and differs markedly between natural and agricultural soils, with agriculture increasing microbial diversity while altering community composition and ecological guilds. Pesticide use selectively reduced bacterial diversity and shifted fungal guilds, decreasing ectomycorrhizal fungi while increasing saprotrophs, whereas fertilization reduced microbial network cohesion, with organic and inorganic fertilizers eliciting distinct community responses. These findings reveal that climatic factors and agricultural management jointly influence soil microbial diversity, community structure, and network connectivity, with implications for soil health and ecosystem resilience in managed landscapes. Overall, our results demonstrate that agricultural practices, including the use of pesticides and both organic and inorganic fertilizers, act as strong ecological filters that reshape soil microbiomes worldwide-enhancing apparent diversity but driving a functional shift toward less mutualistic, more fragmented, and potentially less resilient communities.

The psychedelic mushroom Psilocybe cubensis is cultivated worldwide for recreational and medicinal use. Described initially from Cuba in 1906, there has been substantial debate about its origin and diversification. The prevailing view is that P. cubensis was inadvertently introduced to the Americas when cattle were introduced to the continent from Africa and Europe (approx. 1500 CE), but that its progenitor was endemic to Africa. We report the discovery of the cryptic species Psilocybe ochraceocentrata, the closest wild relative of P. cubensis from sub-Saharan Africa. DNA sequences from type specimens of all known and accessible African species of Psilocybe, and multi-locus phylogenetic and molecular clock analyses, strongly support recognizing African specimens originally identified as P. cubensis as a new species that last shared a common ancestor with P. cubensis approximately 1.5 million years ago (approx. 710 000 to 2.55 million years ago, 95% highest posterior density), long predating cattle domestication. Both species are associated with large herbivore dung, suggesting coprophily in their common ancestor likely predisposed P. cubensis to its present specialization on domesticated cattle dung. Ecological niche modelling using bioclimatic variables for global records of these species indicates historical habitat suitability for the common ancestor of P. cubensis and P. ochraceocentrata across Africa, Asia and the Americas over the last 3 million years. This discovery sheds light on the wild origins of domesticated P. cubensis and provides new genetic resources for research on psychedelic mushrooms.

African soils host a diverse but largely underexplored fungal community, but its poorly understood nature impedes the management and understanding of vital species that provide essential ecological services. As a result, the diversity and distribution of soil fungi in Africa remain largely unknown and inadequately documented compared to the global north, with countless species and presumably higher-level taxonomic groups awaiting discovery and description. Ongoing threats such as habitat degradation, climate change, and intensified land use highlight the urgent need to understand and conserve these vital microbial communities. To address this knowledge gap, we generated eDNA metabarcoding data from 467 topsoil samples across various terrestrial ecosystems in 32 African countries. Our analyses revealed significant spatial heterogeneity, with diversity hotspots in savannas, temperate mixed forests, and dry tropical forest ecosystems and low-diversity zones (coldspots) in arid shrublands and deserts. Precipitation and latitudinal distance emerged as the strongest predictors of fungal alpha diversity. Meanwhile, the drivers of beta diversity were mainly temperature, precipitation, and soil chemical properties. To integrate African soil fungi into the principles of continental biodiversity distribution, we present a detailed continent-wide (including islands) map of fungal richness for all fungi and mycorrhizal fungi, highlighting fine-scale spatial patterns across various ecosystems. This study presents the most comprehensive spatial analysis of soil fungal diversity in Africa to date, acting as a vital reference for advancing ecological research, biodiversity monitoring, and conservation planning across the continent. We emphasize here that more effort should be made to conserve soil fungi, particularly mycorrhizal fungi in Africa, especially in regions with low fungal diversity.

Soil eukaryotes, including fungi, protists, plants, and animals, are central to biosphere functioning and resilience. The Global Standardised Soil Eukaryome Dataset (GloSED) is the first dataset encompassing the entire spectrum of soil eukaryotes, covering 4,063 sampling sites in 121 countries on all continents, revealing nearly one million operational taxonomic units. All samples were collected and analysed using a standardised protocol minimizing technical biases. Long-read sequencing of full-length ITS and 18S-V9 regions provide broad taxonomic coverage and high-resolution identification supported by specialist curation of "dark taxa". A rigorous bioinformatic processing ensures against homopolymer errors, PCR-mediated chimeras, and index switching providing high data quality. The dataset is supported by raw sequences and an open-source containerised workflow for reproducible analyses. The samples are accompanied by land-cover description and directly measured soil pH, δ13C, δ15N, as well as P, K, Ca, Mg, and total C and N contents. GloSED is the first database that enables ecological and biogeographic studies of entire soil eukaryotic communities from local to global scales.

Wild Useful Fungi (WUF) offer substantial yet underexplored opportunities to enhance livelihoods, address gender disparities and alleviate poverty across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper synthesizes the growing body of empirical literature on the socio-economic and ecological roles of WUF to examine their contribution to food security, healthcare and reducing the gender inequalities. A systematic literature review of 95 high-quality peer-reviewed studies published between January, 2000 and June 2025 was conducted using the PRISMA and Cadima methodology. The analysis highlights 396 WUF, 47 of which have documented medicinal uses. These fungi significantly contribute to the diversity of nutritional properties through their rich protein content, vitamins and minerals, and play a crucial role in local food preservation and fermentation practices. Medicinal properties, including antimicrobial and pharmacological benefits, position WUF as promising resources for healthcare innovation. Economically, WUF harvesting and trade serve as vital livelihood strategies, particularly for rural women. Women's involvement in WUF value chains fosters household income generation and food security. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended the cultivation of nutritious fungal species, strengthening value chains and implementation of gender-sensitive policies to maximize the sustainable management and utilization of WUF.

How the multiple facets of soil fungal diversity vary worldwide remains virtually unknown, hindering the management of this essential species-rich group. By sequencing high-resolution DNA markers in over 4000 topsoil samples from natural and human-altered ecosystems across all continents, we illustrate the distributions and drivers of different levels of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of fungi and their ecological groups. We show the impact of precipitation and temperature interactions on local fungal species richness (alpha diversity) across different climates. Our findings reveal how temperature drives fungal compositional turnover (beta diversity) and phylogenetic diversity, linking them with regional species richness (gamma diversity). We integrate fungi into the principles of global biodiversity distribution and present detailed maps for biodiversity conservation and modeling of global ecological processes.

SummaryFungi play pivotal roles in ecosystem functioning, but little is known about their global patterns of diversity, endemicity, vulnerability to global change drivers and conservation priority areas. We applied the high-resolution PacBio sequencing technique to identify fungi based on a long DNA marker that revealed a high proportion of hitherto unknown fungal taxa. We used a Global Soil Mycobiome consortium dataset to test relative performance of various sequencing depth standardization methods (calculation of residuals, exclusion of singletons, traditional and SRS rarefaction, use of Shannon index of diversity) to find optimal protocols for statistical analyses. Altogether, we used six global surveys to infer these patterns for soil-inhabiting fungi and their functional groups. We found that residuals of log-transformed richness (including singletons) against log-transformed sequencing depth yields significantly better model estimates compared with most other standardization methods. With respect to global patterns, fungal functional groups differed in the patterns of diversity, endemicity and vulnerability to main global change predictors. Unlike α-diversity, endemicity and global-change vulnerability of fungi and most functional groups were greatest in the tropics. Fungi are vulnerable mostly to drought, heat, and land cover change. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include wetlands and moist tropical ecosystems.

Fungi are highly diverse organisms, which provide multiple ecosystem services. However, compared with charismatic animals and plants, the distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been little explored. Here, we examined endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high-resolution, long-read metabarcoding approach. We found that the endemicity of all fungi and most functional groups peaks in tropical habitats, including Amazonia, Yucatan, West-Central Africa, Sri Lanka, and New Caledonia, with a negligible island effect compared with plants and animals. We also found that fungi are predominantly vulnerable to drought, heat and land-cover change, particularly in dry tropical regions with high human population density. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include herbaceous wetlands, tropical forests, and woodlands. We stress that more attention should be focused on the conservation of fungi, especially root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi in tropical regions as well as unicellular early-diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between the endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high conservation needs in both groups, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms.

Emil Holub was a nineteenth century, Austro-Hungarian Czech, medical doctor with wide-ranging interests in ethnography and the natural sciences. During visits to southern Africa in the 1870s, he meticulously recorded everything that he encountered. Amongst his vast collection of artifacts, natural history specimens and notes were several sketches of fungi. These illustrations are reproduced here to document this valuable historical knowledge, tentatively identifying them in the context of the habitats through which Holub travelled.

Fungi are highly important biotic components of terrestrial ecosystems, but we still have a very limited understanding about their diversity and distribution. This data article releases a global soil fungal dataset of the Global Soil Mycobiome consortium (GSMc) to boost further research in fungal diversity, biogeography and macroecology. The dataset comprises 722,682 fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) derived from PacBio sequencing of full-length ITS and 18S-V9 variable regions from 3200 plots in 108 countries on all continents. The plots are supplied with geographical and edaphic metadata. The OTUs are taxonomically and functionally assigned to guilds and other functional groups. The entire dataset has been corrected by excluding chimeras, index-switch artefacts and potential contamination. The dataset is more inclusive in terms of geographical breadth and phylogenetic diversity of fungi than previously published data. The GSMc dataset is available over the PlutoF repository.

Fungi play major roles in ecosystem processes, but the determinants of fungal diversity and biogeographic patterns remain poorly understood. Using DNA metabarcoding data from hundreds of globally distributed soil samples, we demonstrate that fungal richness is decoupled from plant diversity. The plant-to-fungus richness ratio declines exponentially toward the poles. Climatic factors, followed by edaphic and spatial variables, constitute the best predictors of fungal richness and community composition at the global scale. Fungi show similar latitudinal diversity gradients to other organisms, with several notable exceptions. These findings advance our understanding of global fungal diversity patterns and permit integration of fungi into a general macroecological framework.

Leho Tedersoo,*† Mohammad Bahram,† Sergei Põlme, Urmas Kõljalg, Nourou S. Yorou, Ravi Wijesundera, Luis Villarreal Ruiz, Aída M. Vasco-Palacios, Pham Quang Thu, Ave Suija, Matthew E. Smith, Cathy Sharp, Erki Saluveer, Alessandro Saitta, Miguel Rosas, Taavi Riit, David Ratkowsky, Karin Pritsch, Kadri Põldmaa, Meike Piepenbring, Cherdchai Phosri, Marko Peterson, Kaarin Parts, Kadri Pärtel, Eveli Otsing, Eduardo Nouhra, André L. Njouonkou, R. Henrik Nilsson, Luis N. Morgado, Jordan Mayor, Tom W. May, Luiza Majuakim, D. Jean Lodge, Su See Lee, Karl-Henrik Larsson, Petr Kohout, Kentaro Hosaka, Indrek Hiiesalu, Terry W. Henkel, Helery Harend, Liang-dong Guo, Alina Greslebin, Gwen Grelet, Jozsef Geml, Genevieve Gates, William Dunstan, Chris Dunk, Rein Drenkhan, John Dearnaley, André De Kesel, Tan Dang, Xin Chen, Franz Buegger, Francis Q. Brearley, Gregory Bonito, Sten Anslan, Sandra Abell, Kessy Abarenkov RESEARCH ARTICLE SUMMARY

Following the discovery of morel ascocarps with strikingly different morphologies in a single site in Rwanda, we decided to establish the taxonomic identity and origin of afrotropical morels using molecular tools. On the basis of ITS 2 sequences, we showed that all the specimens collected in Rwanda and other specimens from Kenya and Tanzania belong to Morchella crassipes, but form a group differentiated front European and Asiatic accessions. These results along with floristic and biogeographical data from the collection site in Rwanda suggest that M. crassipes is native to the area and has not been introduced recently.

First records for 15 Russulas including 2 new species are shortly commented with regard to ecology and ethnomycological uses in Zimbabwe. The new taxa are described and illustrated in detail.

Lactarius sciaphilus Verbeken & Sharp is described from miombo woodlands in Zimbabwe. The species is a close relative of L. kabansus, a well-known and popular edible woodland species. Differences with L. kabansus and L. tenellus are discussed.