Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are fundamental to planetary health, enhancing plant nutrient uptake, stabilizing soils, and supporting biodiversity. Due to their prevalence and ecological importance, AM fungi are critical to achieving the environmental targets within the United Nations (UN) Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) framework, including SDG 15: Life on Land. Despite these fungi engaging in the most widespread and ancient plant-microbe symbiosis, many fundamental aspects of the biogeography of AM fungi remain poorly resolved. This limits our ability to understand and document these fungal species' contributions to preserving terrestrial life on Earth. Using the largest global dataset of AM fungal eDNA sequences, we highlight that > 70% of ecoregions have no available data generated from soil using AM fungal specific metabarcoding. Drawing attention to these severe data gaps can optimize future sampling efforts in key habitats. Filling these gaps and developing a more complete picture on the biogeographic distributions of AM fungal species will help to clarify their contributions to environmental targets.

Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment Section Ecology and Evolution Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Amsterm HZ 1081 the Netherlands

Department of Biology Sri Aurobindo College University of Delhi Delhi 110017 India

Department of Ecology School of Agroecology Mongolian University of Life Sciences Khan Uul District Zaisan Ulaanbaatar 17024 Mongolia

Department of Forest Protection and Wildlife Management Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology Mendel University in Brno Zemědělská 3 Brno 61300 Czechia

Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Albertov 6 Prague 128 00 Czechia

Fungal Conservation Committee IUCN Species Survival Commission Rue Mauverney 28 Gland 1196 Switzerland

Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences Vídeňská 1083 Prague 142 20 Czechia

Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI Avenida Vasquez Cobo Between Calle 15 Leticia 910001 Colombia

School of Earth and Sustainability Department of Biological Sciences Northern Arizona University Flagstaff AZ 86011 United States

Society for the Protection of Underground Networks 3500 South DuPont Highway Dover DE 19901 United States

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