Paleomycology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paleomycology is the study of fossil fungi.[1] Altought fungi are not plants, paleomycology is considered a subdiscipline of paleobotany, centered on mushrooms, fungal spores, and hyphae preserved in sediment layers and rock.[2] Fungi have been found in the palaeoecological record as far back as the Paleozoic era, with evidence of influencing the evolutionary processes of early flowering plants.[3]
Interest in fossilized fungi dates back to the early nineteenth century, with the first illustrated collection being curated by Luigi Meschinelli in 1898. It focussed on matching fossils to modern fungi.[3] Historically, however, paleoecologists tend to place a larger focus on plant and animal macrofossils, partially due to the difficulty and unfamiliarity in identifying fungi physiology and morphology.[3]
Early Discovery
A majority of fossilized fungi remains, such as spores and sclerotia,[3] are discovered in amber.[4] Two particular discoveries of fossil fungi, one in the Baltic sea dated to the Eocene and another in the Dominican Republic dated to the Miocene, are is important for comparison across timescales and for the development of the evolutionary record. A sample of amber from the Baltic site preserved a hexapod and the fungi Aspergillus collembolorum, which suggests the presence of parasitic relationships as early as 34 million years ago.[4] Fossil fungi presents indirect evidence of when symbiotic relationships coevolved, such as saprophytism or commensalism among mycorrhizae or lichen. The presence of wood-rotting fungi in Callixylon whiteanum, one of the oldest identified trees, suggests that saprophytic interactions between plants and fungi evolved when wood first began to develop.[2]
