Biocommunication of Fungal Organisms

The development and growth of fungal organisms depend on successful communication processes (a) within the organism and between organisms, (b) with the same or related species and (c) with non-related organisms. In order to generate an appropriate response behaviour, fungal organisms must also be able to (d) correctly interpret meaningful information from the abiotic environment. However, these communication and interpretation processes can also fail. In such cases the overall results can induce disease-causing and even lethal consequences for the organism. This review will not enrich the knowledge of specialists in fungal research, but will demonstrate to a broader readership the different levels of fungal communication and how versatile fungal communicative competences really are. Interestingly, certain rules of fungal communication are very similar to those of animals, while others resemble those of plants. The correspondence between all three eukaryotic kingdoms has two aspects: (1) the context determines the meaning of trans-, interand intra-organismic (interand intracellular) communication, while (2) differences in abiotic and biotic signal perception determine the content arrangement of response behaviour.