Study

Fungal volatile organic compounds and their role in ecosystems

Hung, R.; Lee, S.; Bennett, J. W.

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 2015

Peer-reviewednarrative reviewmixed

What they did

A synthesis of work identifying the small airborne compounds fungi release — the alcohols, ketones and terpenes that make up the smell of mushrooms, mould and damp — and of bioassays testing what those compounds do to plants, insects and other fungi exposed to them without contact.

Studied in: Fungi
Sample size: review of volatile emission and bioassay studies

What they found

Fungal volatiles act at a distance and in both directions: some attract insects, some repel them, some inhibit the growth of competing fungi and bacteria, and some measurably change plant growth in chambers where the two organisms share air but never touch.

What it means

The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.

How the authors put it

Volatile organic compounds are a significant and underappreciated channel of fungal interaction with other organisms in ecosystems.

How NatureHQ reads it

The fungal signalling channel a reader can verify with their own nose, and the one NatureHQ had barely covered. It deserves the space because it is genuinely a signal that leaves the organism and changes the behaviour of something else — which is more than the electrical activity has been shown to do. The caution it needs is a different one: a compound that affects a beetle is not thereby a message to the beetle, and much of what fungi emit is metabolic exhaust that other organisms have learned to read.

Limitations

A review across very varied experimental designs and exposure concentrations.
Chamber bioassays use concentrations that may not occur in soil or air.
Emitting a compound and signalling with it are different claims, and the literature does not always separate them.