Evolution of fungi

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conidiophore
.

glomaleans branching from the "higher fungi" (dikaryans) at ~570 million years ago, according to DNA analysis. (Schüssler et al., 2001; Tehler et al., 2000)[2] Fungi probably colonized the land during the Cambrian, over 500 million years ago, (Taylor & Osborn, 1996),[2] and possibly 635 million years ago during the Ediacaran,[3][4] but terrestrial fossils only become uncontroversial and common during the Devonian, 400 million years ago.[2]

Early evolution

Evidence from DNA analysis suggests that all fungi are descended from a most recent common ancestor that lived at least 1.2 to 1.5 billion years ago. It is probable that these earliest fungi lived in water, and had flagella.[5]

However, a 2.4-billion-year-old basalt from the

Ongeluk Formation in South Africa containing filamentous fossils in vescicles and fractures, that form mycelium-like structures may push back the origin of the Kingdom over one billion years before.[6]

The earliest terrestrial fungus fossils, or at least fungus-like fossils, have been found in South China from around 635 million years ago. The researchers who reported on these fossils suggested that these fungus-like organisms may have played a role in oxygenating Earth's atmosphere in the aftermath of the Cryogenian glaciations.[3]

About 250 million years ago fungi became abundant in many areas, based on the fossil record, and could even have been the dominant form of life on the earth at that time.[5]

Fossil record

See also: Paleomycology

A rich diversity of fungi is known from the lower

stem group fungus. There is also a case for a fungal affinity for the enigmatic microfossil Ornatifilum. Since the fungi form a sister group to the animals, the two lineages must have diverged before the first animal lineages, which are known from fossils as early as the Ediacaran.[9]

In contrast to

scanning electron microscopy to examine surface details.[12]

The earliest fossils possessing features typical of fungi date to the

saprobism, and the development of mutualistic relationships such as mycorrhiza and lichenization.[16] Recent (2009) studies suggest that the ancestral ecological state of the Ascomycota was saprobism, and that independent lichenization events have occurred multiple times.[17]

In May 2019, scientists reported the discovery of a fossilized fungus, named Ourasphaira giraldae, in the Canadian Arctic, that may have grown on land a billion years ago, well before plants were living on land.[18][19][20] Earlier, it had been presumed that the fungi colonized the land during the Cambrian (542–488.3 Ma), also long before land plants.[2] Fossilized hyphae and spores recovered from the Ordovician of Wisconsin (460 Ma) resemble modern-day Glomerales, and existed at a time when the land flora likely consisted of only non-vascular bryophyte-like plants;[21] but these have been dismissed as contamination.[8][22] Prototaxites, which was probably a fungus or lichen, would have been the tallest organism of the late Silurian. Fungal fossils do not become common and uncontroversial until the early Devonian (416–359.2 Ma), when they are abundant in the Rhynie chert, mostly as Zygomycota and Chytridiomycota.[2][23][24] At about this same time, approximately 400 Ma, the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota diverged,[25] and all modern classes of fungi were present by the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian, 318.1–299 Ma).[26]

sporocarp fossil, a Paleopyrenomycites species found in the Rhynie Chert.[29] The oldest fossil with microscopic features resembling modern-day basidiomycetes is Palaeoancistrus, found permineralized with a fern from the Pennsylvanian.[30] Rare in the fossil record are the homobasidiomycetes (a taxon roughly equivalent to the mushroom-producing species of the agaricomycetes). Two amber-preserved specimens provide evidence that the earliest known mushroom-forming fungi (the extinct species Archaeomarasmius legletti) appeared during the mid-Cretaceous, 90 Ma.[31][32]

Some time after the

fossil record for this period.[33] However, the proportion of fungal spores relative to spores formed by algal species is difficult to assess,[34] the spike did not appear worldwide,[35][36] and in many places it did not fall on the Permian-Triassic boundary.[37]

Approximately 66 million years ago, immediately after the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction that famously killed off most dinosaurs, there was a dramatic increase in evidence of fungi, apparently due to the death of most plant and animal species, creating a huge fungal bloom like "a massive compost heap".[38] The lack of K-T extinction in fungal evolution is also supported by molecular data, because phylogenetic comparative analyses of a tree consist of 5,284 mushroom species (Agaricomycetes) didn't show signal for a mass extinction event around the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary.[39]

References

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  5. ^ a b Fungi evolution. CK-12 Biology Flexbook. CK12-Foundation. §8.11. Retrieved 2020-05-19 – via flexbooks.ck12.org.
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  18. ^ Zimmer, Carl (22 May 2019). "How Did Life Arrive on Land? A Billion-Year-Old Fungus May Hold Clues - A cache of microscopic fossils from the Arctic hints that fungi reached land long before plants". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
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