Mycology is the study of fungi, and a mycologist is a scientist who works with fungi. Mycology includes the study of fungal genetics, biochemistry, and classification. Mycology research also investigates the use of fungi for tinder, medicine, food, sustainable textiles and plastics, and entheogens, psychoactive substances used in ritual or religious contexts. Fungal toxicity and infection are also parts of mycology. As fungi cause the majority of plant infections, the field of mycology overlaps with phytopathology, the study of plant diseases. Other areas of mycology concern the study of fungi with important roles in ecosystems, such as the decomposition of organic material, recycling of nutrients, and the global carbon cycle. The study of fungi that form symbiotic relationships with plants is another area of mycology. Mycorrhizal associations, between plant roots and a fungus that provides water and nutrients to the plant, are relied on by 80 percent of plants. In this mutualistic association, plants provide carbohydrates derived from photosynthesis to the fungi.
Until recently, fungi were classified as plants, a designation that once included unrelated organisms that were grouped together based on their distinction from animals. It is now known that fungi are more closely related to animals than they are to plants. Ecologist Robert Whittaker, in 1969, challenged the binary animal-plant kingdom classification model and proposed a five-part classification system instead, which would include a separate kingdom for fungi. Recognition of the separation of fungi from botany was evidenced by the change in the name of the code of nomenclature for naming new species of plants or fungi from “International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) to International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN).
