Controversies and Emerging Issues in Fungi-Animal Interactions

Fungal–animal interactions link ecosystem functioning, evolutionary change, and human and veterinary health. Although fungi provide essential services through decomposition, nutrient cycling, and symbiosis, emerging fungal pathogens increasingly threaten wildlife, livestock, crops, and people. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land-use change, global trade, wildlife movement, and agricultural fungicide use are reshaping fungal ecology and disease dynamics. Examples such as white-nose syndrome in bats, chytridiomycosis in amphibians, and zoonotic infections caused by Sporothrix brasiliensis and dermatophytes demonstrate the ecological and public health consequences of fungal emergence. Important gaps remain in understanding pathogen adaptation, host shifts, cross-species transmission, virulence, and antifungal resistance.This Research Topic aims to investigate why fungal diseases are emerging or intensifying and how these threats can be detected, prevented, and managed across ecosystems, animals, and human communities. It will examine the ecological, evolutionary, molecular, and epidemiological drivers of fungal emergence, while highlighting advances in surveillance, genomic analysis, diagnostics, therapeutics, and One Health approaches.To gather further insights into fungal–animal interactions across wildlife, domestic animals, agricultural systems, and human-associated environments, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:-Climate change, land-use change, biodiversity loss, and fungal ecology;-Emergence, host shifts, geographic expansion, and spillover of fungal pathogens;-Ecological impacts of fungal diseases in wildlife and agricultural systems;-Molecular epidemiology, genomic surveillance, and next-generation diagnostics;-Fungal pathogenesis, virulence, host susceptibility, and immune interactions;-Antifungal resistance, including environmental-to-clinical cross-resistance and biofilms;-Novel antifungal therapeutics, vaccines, and disease-management strategies;-Zoonotic and reverse-zoonotic fungal transmission;-Multiomics, comparative biology, modelling, and interdisciplinary One Health research.We welcome comprehensive reviews, original research, and novel perspectives addressing basic, translational, or applied aspects of fungal–animal interactions. Topic editors: Maria José Soares Mendes Giannini, Ana Marisa Fusco-Almeida, Anderson Messias Rodrigues Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85216/controversies-and-emerging-issues-in-fungi-animal-interactions