Are they becoming deadlier? Or, did they just rise higher in the list by virtue of the fact that other threats were mitigated.
> Not all of our vulnerability is the fault of medicine preserving life so successfully. Other human actions have opened more doors between the fungal world and our own. We clear land for crops and settlement and perturb what were stable balances between fungi and their hosts. We carry goods and animals across the world, and fungi hitchhike on them. We drench crops in fungicides and enhance the resistance of organisms residing nearby. We take actions that warm the climate, and fungi adapt, narrowing the gap between their preferred temperature and ours that protected us for so long.
Still early stages, but signs point to fungi becoming deadlier.
Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi. Meanwhile, insects (bees, ants, others) actually farm fungi as part of their food and for defense. This all points to a really profound and fundamental fact: We have been co-existing with fungi every second of every person's entire lives.
If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi.
I was listening to a podcast recently that discussed how human average body temperature has been declining in recent years while heat tolerance of fungi has been rising (thanks to the climate). The result is that our bodies are less capable of preventing fungal infections through heat and fungi can be pretty deadly if unchecked.
In order to do that, individuals with too low a body temperature would be removed from the group due to infections. This would create a balanced system between body temperature (energy expenditure) and bacterial immunity.
With the development of antibiotics, this changed. The previous bottom of the group is not culled anymore, removing the barrier of the imbalance. Therefore, the group is 'safely' selecting for lower body temperatures.
The studies that found this also found that 1. sperm counts stopped and went back up again 2. men with lower testosterone have more children.
The theory is that in wealthy countries with good public health, there's less need to maintain a high body temperature to fend off threats. The show said that human body temperature "has been steadily declining for decades at a rate of, like, .05 degrees Fahrenheit per decade." (though not in less developed countries)...average is said to be more like 97.5 degrees.
So it's possible this reduction reflects a change in our diets
What? More details and citations are needed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201028171432.h....
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/01/human-body-te...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-human-body-te...
> If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi.
That's an overreach. It could be either or both. Obviously fungi are evolving rapidly as you yourself point out.