Copyrighted Material Fungloccupy an important placen the ntural world As non-photosynthet收organims they obtain的eir nurients from the degradation of organic materal They uve many of their secondary metaboltes to secure a place in a competitve natural emonment and to protect themselves from predacion The structural diversty of fungal metaboites the unitying role ol biosynthetic studies in raonaling these and the growing ecological understanding ofthe role cffungal metaboites has attacted the interest of chemists for many years.in addtion.a number of aspectsof moder bictechnology are now assocuted weh fungl and ther metabolnes and the production ol The im of this book is the intoduce chemists to the ange of n the may be f es on ta tory me about to embarkona career in chemical microblology by povding an overall perspective offunga metabolnes as well as an essential sdeence tool for more general chemists RSCPublishing www.rsc.org/books