Aquatic fungi just got a global dataset—and its gaps are as informative as its scale
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
The FunAqua data descriptor combines 1,076 sediment and 1,299 filtered-water samples from 1,452 sites in 87 countries and reports 50,152 fungal OTUs using long-read ITS metabarcoding. European samples make up about 56% of the dataset, with freshwater lakes and rivers much more heavily represented than several coastal and specialized aquatic habitats.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
This is valuable as both a biodiversity resource and a map of where the evidence is thin. Global microbial baselines become more useful when sampling geography, biome coverage, sequencing depth and laboratory differences remain visible rather than disappearing behind the word 'global.'
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
Sampling is geographically and environmentally uneven, protocols and preservation histories vary among contributing campaigns, ITS barcoding has taxonomic limitations, and recovered DNA does not by itself distinguish actively growing aquatic fungi from spores or material transported into the sample.
SOURCE
Scientific Data
View original evidence ↗
FunAqua assembles long-read metabarcoding from 1,452 sites in 87 countries, but Europe supplies more than half the samples and fungal sequencing depth remains uneven.
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