Fossil fungi, a little snippet of interest

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Fossil Fungi

New fossils suggest that the cozy relationship enjoyed by green plants and fungi today may have originated nearly half a billion years ago. In fact, according to a report in the September 2000 issue of the journal Science, a primeval pas de deux with fungi may have given green plants a toehold on land.

Botanist Linda K. Graham of the University of Wisconsin and a student coaxed the new specimens out of sediments collected in Wisconsin that were dated to 460 million years ago. Unsure of exactly what they might be, they turned to fossil fungi expert Dirk Redecker, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, who identified the remains as the spores and rootlike threads, or hyphae (right), of fungi similar to those in the modern genus Glomus. The new fossils push the date for the earliest terrestrial fungi back by about 60 million years to the time when plants started taking over the land.

The vast majority of today's green plants form associations with so-called mycorrhizal fungi, which help them to absorb nutrients. Although the researchers did not find fossil green plants with the new fossil fungi, modern Glomus species are known to keep company with liverworts and hornworts--relatives of the only land plants present at the time of these fossils. And previously known fossils demonstrate that micorrhizal fungi were hanging around more advanced plants by 400 million years ago. Taking that into consideration, the researchers propose a similar partnership between the first land plants and the fungi represented by the new fossils.

[Danavan]

Prob not understood your trail of thought on this post which I'm sure is not a suprise:confused1: But it lead me to thinking of a Ted Green talk I listened to & a point he made about fungi always present in trees with various actions to perform at times when needed.

 

I'm sure this relationship is out their for us all to see in past & presant forms. Always amaizing the paths we find in nature.

 

Sorry if I'm compleatly off track..

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Prob not understood your trail of thought on this post which I'm sure is not a suprise:confused1: But it lead me to thinking of a Ted Green talk I listened to & a point he made about fungi always present in trees with various actions to perform at times when needed.

 

I'm sure this relationship is out their for us all to see in past & presant forms. Always amaizing the paths we find in nature.

 

Sorry if I'm compleatly off track..

 

not at all mate, waffle on, i always do!

[sean freeman]

The fossil record can expose some most unusual evolutionary paths, some of them still being travelled today.

 

Prototaxites, probably the tallest organism of the late Silurian and early Devonian periods (Paleozoic era) certainly can make you ponder the transient nature of any climatic climax community.

 

I think that Ted's arguement about co-evolutionary development is very well founded, as is the point that fungal spores can be found latent within wood tissues without injury sites being the point of entry.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

The fossil record can expose some most unusual evolutionary paths, some of them still being travelled today.

 

Prototaxites, probably the tallest organism of the late Silurian and early Devonian periods (Paleozoic era) certainly can make you ponder the transient nature of any climatic climax community.

 

I think that Ted's arguement about co-evolutionary development is very well founded, as is the point that fungal spores can be found latent within wood tissues without injury sites being the point of entry.

 

All fascinating stuff isnt it, I have absolutley 100% faith that plants would never have gotten a foot hold without thier fungal allies.

 

As for the latent propogules in wood thats something I cant wait to investigate personaly, increment cores and petri dishes!

 

my kingdom for a scope and a particle filter!

[Danavan]

Look fwd to results Hama:thumbup1: Sure it will take time as with all things we throw out their. Just the sort of stuff that can't fail to blow the mind with it,s complexity & ability to supprise at every new descovery.

 

Far beyond my relms but always an interest in these forrms that have such influance in all our lifes..

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Look fwd to results Hama:thumbup1: Sure it will take time as with all things we throw out their. Just the sort of stuff that can't fail to blow the mind with it,s complexity & ability to supprise at every new descovery.

 

Far beyond my relms but always an interest in these forrms that have such influance in all our lifes..

 

To be honest danavan, its probably above my realm too, but I'll have a damn good go at it!

 

I am going to have to wait for the scopes I think, ive hit rock bottom financialy and i need to pull it back a bit:thumbdown:

 

I over reached on the life long learning bit and got a bit carried away on courses and cpd and books!

Edited May 25, 2010 by Tony Croft aka hamadryad

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

American Museum of Natural History News Ancient Indian Amber Preserves 52-million-year-old Biological Partnership

[born2trot]

Would be interesting to find out what fungi are the last to die off at the approach of an ice age and the first to re-emerge as it ends.

[Fungus]

The fossil record can expose some most unusual evolutionary paths, some of them still being travelled today. Prototaxites, probably the tallest organism of the late Silurian and early Devonian periods (Paleozoic era) certainly can make you ponder the transient nature of any climatic climax community.

 

Sean,

Recent (French) research has shown, that Prototaxites was a lichen, i.e. a symbiotic combination of a microfungus and a cyanobacteria, of which the microfungus profited most.

Fossils of it are displayed in the Devonium Museum in Waxweiler (German Eifel), the town where lots of other 400 million old fossils are found and I used to live in for eight years.