The expansion of fungal organisms in environmental biotechnology

Fungal organisms hold vital roles in ecosystem processes. Despite their intricate entanglement with most life on earth and their powerful metabolic capacities, they remain under-represented in environmental biotechnology. The interest in applying fungal biotechnologies to different environments is growing, as light is shed on their versatile potential. A diversity of fungi can be harnessed to promote crop yield, remediate pollutants from terrestrial and aquatic environments, and mitigate climate change impacts. Current technological advancements, such as the increase in high-accuracy ‘omics pipelines, provide improvement. However, it is emphasized that there are many knowledge gaps regarding applying fungal biotechnology at scale where other organisms are inherently present. Hence, there is a dire need to increase funding that enables in-depth studies on fungal processes, such as degradation capacities, metabolite production, and cross-kingdom interactions, that promote climate-smart biotechnologies. [Display omitted] •The use of fungal biotechnology in the environmental sector is gaining traction.•Fungal biotechnologies hold the potential to solve environmental and societal issues.•Fungi can promote plant growth, remediate pollutants, and mitigate climate change.•Research to enable large-scale application of fungal biotechnology is lacking.•Scientific efforts to increase safe practice of fungal biotechnologies must progress.