Global patterns of species diversity and distribution in the biomedically and biotechnologically important fungal genus <i>Aspergillus</i>.

ABSTRACT: Aspergillus fungi are key producers of pharmaceuticals, enzymes, and food products and exhibit diverse lifestyles, ranging from saprophytes to opportunistic pathogens. To improve understanding of Aspergillus species diversity, identify key environmental factors influencing their geographic distributions, and estimate the impact of future climate change, we trained a random forest machine learning classifier on 30,542 terrestrial occurrence records for 176 species (~40% of known species in the genus) and 96 environmental variables. We found that regions with high species diversity are concentrated in temperate forests, which suggests that areas with mild seasonal variation may serve as diversity hotspots. Species range estimates revealed extensive variability, both within and

SUBMITTER: Riedling OL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11642779 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature