Information concerning the speed of recovery in forest ecosystems is critical when seeking to determine the length of sustainable logging rotations, or for the evaluation of different forest restoration options for species conservation programs. Different functional groups may have specific roles within the ecosystem processes and costly conservation efforts should be targeted at species of conservation concern. Therefore, an analysis of how functional or ecological groups recover following disturbance could provide more precise information than the recovery of taxonomic groups alone. We studied the recovery rate of taxonomic and functional groups of fungi in a boreal landscape where forest use had ceased more than 60 years ago. The forests in our study areas had a variable utilization history. The stands located near abandoned settlements were former scrubland. The adjacent stands formed a selectively cut zone and were followed by stands deeper in the forest matrix that were largely in pristine condition. We recorded boletoid, agaricoid and aphyllophoroid fungi species numbers in 0.25 ha sample plots at 500 m intervals along seven 2–2.5 km long transects. The transects started at the edge of the forest next to the abandoned settlements. Distance (intensity of previous forest utilization) did not affect the species richness of the taxonomic or functional groups of fungi, although the number of aphyllophoroid species of conservation concern was 50% lower in the forests that had been utilized in the past than in the surrounding pristine forests. Moreover, in stands close to the villages, the composition of aphyllophoroid species (β diversity) differed from that of more distant and less utilized stands. Our results would suggest that the majority of ecosystem properties provided by higher fungi groups seem to recover within one century. However, the slow pace of accumulation of dead wood in an advanced state of decay probably slows the recovery of aphyllophoroid species of conservation concern.