ArticleThe ISME journal2020
Fungal communities decline with urbanization-more in air than in soil.
Article in The ISME journal, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed.
- A synthesis of recorded fine-scale threats to imperiled species in the United States.iScience · 2026Article
- Consistent root microbiomes across contrasting habitats in a wild perennial vine.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2026Article
- Evidence for Reductions in Fungal Richness and Beta Diversity Dispersion Associated With Impervious Surfaces in California.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Variation in microbial and plant associations across wild bee families, functional groups, and urban environments.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Connecting habitats, boosting disease resistance: Spatial connectivity enhances amphibian microbiome defenses against fungal pathogen.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Low fungal knowledge and limited identification skills: study reveals a species literacy gap among laypeople from Germany.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Spatial and temporal patterns of public transit aerobiomes.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Identification and Multigene Phylogenetic Analysis RevealJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- New additions toMycoKeys · 2026Article
- Detection of Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics in Communities Using Joint Species Distribution Models.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Sharp but consistent fungi species composition transition during a 40-yr urbanization in a subtropical city of China.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Diversity of fungi attached to birds corresponds to the habitat ecologies of their avian dispersal vectors.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Differences in the genomic potential of soil bacterial and viral communities between urban greenspaces and natural arid soils.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Fungal Assemblages in Northern Elms-Impacts of Host Identity and Health, Growth Environment, and Presence of Dutch Elm Disease.Microbial ecology · 2025Article
- Urbanization leads to asynchronous homogenization of soil microbial communities across biomes.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2025Article
- Review
- The Relationship Between Air Pollution, Meteorological Factors, and Eosinophil Counts in Peripheral Blood of Patients With Allergic Rhinitis: A Cross-Sectional Study.Canadian respiratory journal · 2025Article
- Diversity and Composition of the Airborne Fungal Community in Mexico City with a Metagenomic Approach.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Local climate, air quality and leaf litter cover shape foliar fungal communities on an urban tree.Ambio · 2024Article
- Comparative analysis of airborne fungal spore distribution in urban and rural environments of Slovakia.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Increasing evidence suggests that degradation of biodiversity in human populated areas is a threat for the ecosystem processes that are relevant for human well-being. Fungi are a megadiverse kingdom that plays a key role in ecosystem processes and affects human well-being. How urbanization influences fungi has remained poorly understood, partially due to the methodological difficulties in comprehensively surveying fungi. Here we show that both aerial and soil fungal communities are greatly poorer in urban than in natural areas. Strikingly, a fivefold reduction in fungal DNA abundance took place in both air and soil samples already at 1 km scale when crossing the edge from natural to urban habitats. Furthermore, in the air, fungal diversity decreased with urbanization even more than in the soil. This result is counterintuitive as fungal spores are known to disperse over large distances. A large proportion of the fungi detectable in the air are specialized to natural habitats, whereas soil fungal communities comprise a large proportion of habitat generalists. The sensitivity of the aerial fungal community to anthropogenic disturbance makes this method a reliable and efficient bioindicator of ecosystem health in urban areas.
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