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Some fungi require dead organic matter for survival - necrotrophs. Many dont (e.g. yeast)

It is saprophytic if i am not mistaken.

Saprophytic means: it eats dead plants. Necrotroph means: it kills a plant, and then eats the dead plant.

I have heard the term saprophytic many times, always related to fungi, but it's the first time i have heard the term necrotroph. My browser's spell correction underlines it with red like a word not spelled right. It is probably a new term.

In the context of these experiments the fungi don't really have to do anything in this Mars-like environment, except surviving. Many fungi can do that quite well by going in a dormant state.

If you want to take these results to extrapolate whether there could be living and "thriving" fungi on Mars right now: there are radiotrophic fungi that can extract energy from ionizing (and possibly non-ionizing) radiation. There could also be fungi capable of chemosynthesis, the production of sugar and amino acids using oxidation reactions as a fuel source.

The fungi used were lichenous and affixed to mars-like and moon-like substrata, not unlike the stone-like environments they were originally sourced from in Antarctica.