Impossible to accurately describe the fungi. A ubiquitous being in living creatures on the planet, with about 140,000 spp. described, but estimates of 2.2 to 3.8M (Wikipedia). In archaic publications and even in modern magazines, they are associated with plants, although they are much closer to animals. But in the modern web of life, fungi are a unique lineage among the 78 already listed of prokaryotes.
Yes, modern fungi, animals and plants are just three of the 78 lineages of eukaryotic life forms. The other 75 were formerly part of the Protista, with some formerly thought to be fungi, now thought to be independent.
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| PHYLOGENETIC TREE OF FUNGI; CLICK FOR FULL SIZE |
In this post, we will not talk about fungi as a whole. For those who want to know super details of the evolution of this group, we recommend Ortiz & Gabaldón (PMC/2019). Here we discreetly list three types of fungi interesting from the perspective of Almanaque Z: the truffles (Tuber), the aquatic basidiomycota and the bioluminescent fungi.
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| PHYLOGENETIC POSITION OF THE FUNGI THAT WILL BE DISCUSSED HERE |
TUBER, TUBERACEAE, PEZIZIALES
Tuber P.Micheli ex F.H.Wigg., true 'truffles', is a genus in the Tuberaceae family of fungi, with estimated molecular dating to the end of the Jurassic period (156 Mya). It includes several species of truffles that are highly valued as delicacies. According to the Dictionary of the Fungi (2008), this widespread genus contains 86 spp. In 2015 a new species T. petrophilum Milenković, P. Jovan., Grebenc, Ivančević & Marković, in Milenković, Grebenc, Marković & Ivančević was discovered in the Dinaric Alps (Southeastern Europe, Serbia). In 2016, two new species were discovered in introduced trees of pecans cultivated in Brazil but putatively native from North America, T. floridanum A. Grupe, Sulzbacher & M.E. Smith and T. brennemanii A. Grupe, Healy & M.E. Smith. (Wikipedia).
AGARICALES
Agaricales includes about 13,000 described mushrooms, and it includes all the mushrooms that we want to highlight here: the bioluminescent mushrooms and the aquatic mushrooms.
BIOLUMINESCENT
Worldwide, among the luminescent species, 125 species of mushroom-forming fungi have been recorded to date. These fungi represent five distinct lineages
Armillaria ‣ Armillaria species at Physalacriaceae (12 spp.), absents in South America.Mycenoid ‣ 4-8 genera with bioluminescents, Mycena, Filoboletus (manipularis group), Panellus (Panellus/Dictyopanus species), Roridomyces, and Resinomycena (a single bioluminescent, exclusive from SE Brazil), all anchored in the family Mycenaceae. 17 luminescent species in Brazil (Soares, C.B. et al, Phytotaxa, 2024), three in Amazonia Complex.Omphalotus ‣ (4/)12 bioluminescent spp. (Wikipedia), Neonothopanus (2) and Omphalotus (10, California to Texas and NW & N Mexico, E U.S.A., SW South Africa, S China to Japan in E Asia, S Australia to Tasmania) plus Nothopanus eugrammus (Japan to Malaysia) and Pleurotus decipiens, only the former in N & NE Brazil (Neonothopanus gardneri), mainly in palms.Lucentipes ‣ two species: Gerronema viridilucens, described in 2005 based on material collected from the bark of living Eugenia fluminensis O.Berg. trees in S São Paulo State in SE Brazil; and Mycena lucentipes Desjardin, Capelari & Stevani, knwoon from SE Brazil and Puerto Rico (Desjardin et al., Mycologia, 2005); both form an independent lineage of bioluminescent fungi with uncertain phylogenetic position at the family level.
Eoscyphella ‣ a single species, exclusive from Brazil, Eoscyphella luciurceolata Silva-Filho, Stevani & Desjardin, known from a bark of Solanum swartzianum in the Atlantic Rainforest, southern Brazil. Known only from the type locality (Silva-Filho et al., Journal of Fungi, 2023).
By IPBio (VER) there are 105 spp. in the world, 17 described 12 not yet described in Brazil, mostly in the Atlantic Forest, making the forest a global hotspot for this unique type of fungus.
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| SOME LIGHT MUSHROOMS FROM ATALNTIC FOREST OF BRAZIL |
UNDERWATER
Basidiomycota that fruit in water include only Psathyrella aquatica J.L.Frank, Coffan, & Southworth, 2010 (Wikipedia), in family Psathyrellaceae, found only in the Rogue River in Oregon, USA. It was found by Southern Oregon University professor Robert Coffan in the Rogue River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Coffan and his colleagues, Darlene Southworth and Jonathan Frank, found the mushroom in 2005. The biology department at Southern Oregon University confirmed that the mushroom was a unique discovery. Once their research was published, it was named one of the most significant species discovered in 2010. They have so far been discovered in a 1 kilometer stretch of the river, and have an observed fruiting season of mid-June to late September. Many scientists were skeptical about describing this mushroom as a new species because of the hundreds of similar looking species in the Psathyrella family.
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| Psathyrella aquatica J.L.Frank, Coffan, & Southworth in situ, Oregon, U.S.A. |
ECTOMYCORRHIZA
An ectomycorrhiza (ECM) is a form of symbiotic relationship that occurs between a fungal symbiont, or mycobiont, and the roots of various plant species. The mycobiont is often from the phyla Basidiomycota and Ascomycota, and more rarely from the Zygomycota, among 78-82 fungal lineages that comprise 251-256 genera (Tedersoo & Smith, Fungal Biology Reviews, 2013). Ectomycorrhizas form on the roots of around 2% of plant species,[1] usually woody plants, including species from the birch, dipterocarp, myrtle, beech, willow, pine and rose families (Wikipedia). Pseudotulostoma volvatum OK Mill. & TW Henkel has the first occurrence of an ectomycorrhizal Ascomycota fungus in a native host plant in Brazil, in white-sand forest composed of the canopy tree Aldina heterophylla Spruce ex Benth. (Fabaceae) in NE Amazonas state (Komura et al., Plant Systematics and Evolution, 2021).