Rachel Roberts
5/29/19
Field, Katie. “Ancient Fungi May Have Laid the Groundwork for Complex Life.” Popular
For current event 14, I decided to view Katie Field’s article, “Ancient Fungi May Have Laid the Groundwork for Complex Life.” Field discusses the new findings of fungi fossils that completely changed how scientists viewed the time fungi been on Earth. Before this discovery, the oldest evidence of fungi was from 450 million years ago. While this still makes fungi extremely old, this new evidence gave proof of them living almost 500 million years earlier than expected, doubling their age. The fossilized fungi were extracted from Arctic Canadian fungal spores and hyphae, which are thread-like tubes. This “plug the gap in the fossil record and suggest that fungi may have occupied land well before plants.” Although it is challenging to find fungi fossils due to environmental damage, Field describes their discovery as “The fungal fossils were found in rocks that were probably once part a shallow-water estuary. Such environments are typically great for fungi thanks to nutrient-rich waters and the build-up of washed-up organic matter to feed on. The high salinity, high mineral, and low oxygen content of these ancient coastal habitats also provided great conditions to perfectly preserve the tough chitin molecules embedded within fungal cell walls that otherwise would have decomposed.” This discovery of fossil evidence doubles the age of fungi to billion years and helps bring insight to the timeline of life on Earth and where the fungi fit in.
The discovery discussed in this article has given us insight into how Earth’s biosphere has evolved. Field wrote, “The first plants to emerge onto land 500 million years ago formed intimate partnerships with fungi. Lacking roots, these early plants relied on their fungal partners to grow inside them and spread outwards into the primordial mineral soil.” They relied on each other by using the process of biological weathering. Fungal hyphae would release organic acids to dissolve rocks and extract the nutrients within them. Then, the plants would transport the nutrients created through photosynthesis to the fungi. This exchange of resources between plants and fungi induced the “growth, evolution, and diversification of Earth’s flora into ever more complex species, communities, and ecosystems, and remains the norm today.” For example, over 90% of plants interact with a “fungal partner.” Also, the cooperation of plants and fungi had effects on the atmosphere as plants were able to evolve more efficient mechanisms for photosynthesis. Plants were able to have better control over carbon dioxide and water, which increased oxygen concentrations and the absorption of carbon dioxide. This supported the “emergence of much larger, more complex animal life than the tiny insect-like forms that previous oxygen levels could support.”
When reading this article, I found that there were many good aspects of her writing. She was able to explain the information used in the article very well, especially since I did not know much of the subject before reading it. For example, her explanation of biological weathering was helpful, and it allowed me to explain what it was in this review. Also, while there was not much of a background story following the person who made the discovery, Field was still able to make the article very interesting by creating the storyline of the evolution of fungi and plants. Although the story was captivating, there were some choppy areas of the article. It transitioned quickly between topics which would sometimes confuse me. For example, the article went from focusing on how the discovery will help the environment, to how the discovery brings insight to the relationship between fungi and plants, then back to how it will help the environment. There were slight transitions at the end of the paragraphs but not enough to fully cue the reader in that topics will shift. While most of the article was well written, it would be much easier to read if there was a clear order of information.
