Skip to main content
SLU publication database (SLUpub)

Review article2021Peer reviewedOpen access

Fungal behaviour: a new frontier in behavioural ecology

Aleklett, Kristin; Boddy, Lynne

Abstract

As human beings, behaviours make up our everyday lives. What we do from the moment we wake up to the moment we go back to sleep at night can all be classified and studied through the concepts of behavioural ecology. The same applies to all vertebrates and, to some extent, invertebrates. Fungi are, in most people's eyes perhaps, the eukaryotic multicellular organisms with which we humans share the least commonalities. However, they still express behaviours, and we argue that we could obtain a better understanding of their lives - although they are very different from ours - through the lens of behavioural ecology. Moreover, insights from fungal behaviour may drive a better understanding of behavioural ecology in general.

Published in

Trends in ecology & evolution
2021, Volume: 36, number: 9, pages: 787-796 Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON