Authors
Carlos A Aguilar‐Trigueros, Franz‐Sebastian Krah, William K Cornwell, Amy E Zanne, Nerea Abrego, Ian C Anderson, Carrie J Andrew, Petr Baldrian, Claus Bässler, Andrew Bissett, V Bala Chaudhary, Baodong Chen, Yongliang Chen, Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo, Coline Deveautour, Eleonora Egidi, Habacuc Flores‐Moreno, Jacob Golan, Jacob Heilmann‐Clausen, Stefan Hempel, Yajun Hu, Håvard Kauserud, Stephanie N Kivlin, Petr Kohout, Daniel R Lammel, Fernando T Maestre, Anne Pringle, Jenna Purhonen, Brajesh K Singh, Stavros D Veresoglou, Tomáš Větrovský, Haiyang Zhang, Matthias C Rillig, Jeff R Powell
Publication date
2023/9
Journal
Ecology letters
Volume
26
Issue
9
Pages
1523-1534
Description
Despite host‐fungal symbiotic interactions being ubiquitous in all ecosystems, understanding how symbiosis has shaped the ecology and evolution of fungal spores that are involved in dispersal and colonization of their hosts has been ignored in life‐history studies. We assembled a spore morphology database covering over 26,000 species of free‐living to symbiotic fungi of plants, insects and humans and found more than eight orders of variation in spore size. Evolutionary transitions in symbiotic status correlated with shifts in spore size, but the strength of this effect varied widely among phyla. Symbiotic status explained more variation than climatic variables in the current distribution of spore sizes of plant‐associated fungi at a global scale while the dispersal potential of their spores is more restricted compared to free‐living fungi. Our work advances life‐history theory by highlighting how the interaction between …
Total citations
Scholar articles
CA Aguilar‐Trigueros, FS Krah, WK Cornwell… - Ecology letters, 2023