Journal of Climate Change and Pollution

ABSTRACT

Background

Fungi constitute one of the most diverse and functionally versatile groups of organisms, contributing to ecosystem functioning, agricultural productivity, medical innovation, industrial biotechnology, and environmental sustainability. Despite these diverse applications, knowledge on fungal contributions remains fragmented across disciplinary fields, limiting integrated understanding of their potential within the emerging global bioeconomy. Although several reviews have examined specific fungal applications, comparatively few have synthesized evidence across these major sectors to identify common themes, knowledge gaps, and future research priorities.

Objective

This integrative review synthesizes published evidence on the roles of fungi in agriculture, medicine, industry, and environmental management to develop a cross-sector perspective on their contributions to sustainable bioeconomic development while identifying areas of consensus, emerging opportunities, and unresolved research gaps.

Methods

An integrative review methodology was employed using peer-reviewed literature retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Publications published primarily between 2010 and 2025 were screened using predefined eligibility criteria focusing on fungal ecology, biotechnology, genomics, medical mycology, industrial applications, and environmental sustainability. Eligible studies were organized through thematic synthesis to compare evidence across four application domains and to identify recurring patterns, interdisciplinary linkages, areas of agreement, and reported limitations.

Results

The review synthesized evidence demonstrating that fungi make substantial contributions to sustainable agriculture through mycorrhizal associations, biological pest management, and soil improvement; to medicine through antimicrobial discovery, pathogen surveillance, and advances in medical mycology; to industry through enzyme production, fermentation technologies, and bio-based manufacturing; and to environmental sustainability through biodegradation, bioremediation, and carbon cycling. Across the reviewed literature, increasing integration of artificial intelligence and computational biology was identified as an emerging trend supporting genome analysis, metabolic pathway prediction, and process optimization. However, the review also identified persistent fragmentation between disciplinary fields, limited cross-sector integration, and relatively few studies evaluating fungal applications under diverse climatic, regulatory, and socioeconomic conditions.

Conclusion

The available evidence indicates that fungi represent an important biological resource with broad applications across multiple sectors of the bioeconomy. Greater integration of ecological, agricultural, medical, industrial, and computational research is needed to strengthen translation into sustainable practice. Future research should prioritize interdisciplinary evaluation frameworks, comparative assessments across application domains, and the responsible integration of artificial intelligence to improve the scalability and resilience of fungal-based innovations.

Keywords: Fungi; Global Bioeconomy; Integrative Review; Sustainable Agriculture; Medical Mycology; Industrial Biotechnology; Bioremediation; Artificial Intelligence