Aquatic fungi: largely neglected targets for conservation.

Aquatic fungi (true fungi and fungi-like oomycetes) are a diverse group that plays a key role in aquatic ecosystems through carbon and nutrient cycling, production of essential organic compounds, food-web dynamics, and energy flow (Gladfelter I et al i . 2019; Grossart I et al i . 2019; Ruess and Müller-Navarra 2019) (Figure 1). Furthermore, aquatic fungi have been completely neglected as potential conservation targets; to date, only a small number of terrestrial macrofungi have been evaluated for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Gonçalves I et al i . 2021; IUCN 2021). [Extracted from the article]