US EditionAncient Fungi Dates Back Far Earlier Than Thought
Research shows fungi diversified hundreds of millions of years before land plants and engineered early ecosystems by recycling nutrients and creating primitive soils, scientists say.
- Recently, researchers at the Earth‑Life Science Institute at the Institute of Science Tokyo studied iron‑rich hot springs in Japan and found early microbes harnessed iron and traces of oxygen about 2.3 billion years ago.
- Faced with rising oxygen, ancient microorganisms adapted and persisted despite the lethal surge caused by cyanobacteria during the Great Oxygenation Event about 2.3 billion years ago.
- Metagenomic analysis revealed mixed communities in the five hot springs, where microaerophilic iron‑oxidizing bacteria dominated four sites and metabolized oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, Shawn McGlynn said.
- Molecular clock and gene‑swap evidence pushed fungal diversification earlier, with OIST finding fungi diversified hundreds of millions of years before land plants using 17 horizontal gene transfer events.
- Researchers say the study may guide astrobiology searches as Fatima Li‑Hau notes mycorrhizal fungi boost plant productivity by up to 40 percent, with Rhizocore Technologies treating 600,000 trees.
20 Articles
20 Articles
The billion-year reign of fungi that predated plants and made Earth livable
Fungi may have shaped Earth’s landscapes long before plants appeared. By combining rare gene transfers with fossil evidence, researchers have traced fungal origins back nearly a billion years earlier than expected. These ancient fungi may have partnered with algae, recycling nutrients, breaking down rock, and creating primitive soils. Far from being silent background players, fungi were ecosystem engineers that prepared Earth’s surface for plant…
A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Dating the tree of Fungi has been challenging due to a paucity of fossil calibrations and high taxonomic diversity of the group. Here we reconstructed and dated a comprehensive phylogeny comprising 110 fungal species, utilizing 225 phylogenetic markers and accounting for across-site compositional heterogeneity in amino acid sequences. To address uncertainties in fungal dating, we sampled chronograms from four relaxed molecular clock analyses, ea…
Fungi may have set the stage for life on land hundreds of millions of years earlier than thought
New research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution sheds light on the timelines and pathways of evolution of fungi, finding evidence of their influence on ancient terrestrial ecosystems. The study, led by researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and collaborators, indicates the diversification of fungi hundreds of millions of years before the emergence of land plants.
Japanese hot springs provide window into early Earth oceans
Hot spring in Japan. Credit: Fatima Li-Hau, ELSI New evidence suggests that early microbes living on Earth about 2.3 billion years ago didn’t use light from the sun, but rather iron and traces of oxygen, as their primary energy source. A team from the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Institute of Science Tokyo studied iron-rich hot springs across Japan which have a similar chemistry to Earth’s ancient oceans. The results help scientists under…
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