Fungi: The Great Decomposers Although fungi are over looked in the commerical asspect of the world, they play a great rool in the web of life. In the fungi kingdom there are over 175,00 diffrent species. The main object of fungi is to decompose nutrients of plants and animals. History the history of fungi is not very clear because scientists have never realy wnt in great deepth , because fungi are not needed commericaly. the ancestors of fungi lived in shallow bodies of water about 600-800 million years ago. Some of the things the fungi had to encounter from living out of water was, there was more sunlight that was normally blocked be the wa