Department of Genomics and Bioinformatics, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Dr. Aiguader 88, Barcelona, 08003, Spain.
Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), 08003, Barcelona, Spain.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2019 Aug;94(4):1443-1476. doi: 10.1111/brv.12510. Epub 2019 Apr 25.
Fungi are a highly diverse group of heterotrophic eukaryotes characterized by the absence of phagotrophy and the presence of a chitinous cell wall. While unicellular fungi are far from rare, part of the evolutionary success of the group resides in their ability to grow indefinitely as a cylindrical multinucleated cell (hypha). Armed with these morphological traits and with an extremely high metabolical diversity, fungi have conquered numerous ecological niches and have shaped a whole world of interactions with other living organisms. Herein we survey the main evolutionary and ecological processes that have guided fungal diversity. We will first review the ecology and evolution of the zoosporic lineages and the process of terrestrialization, as one of the major evolutionary transitions in this kingdom. Several plausible scenarios have been proposed for fungal terrestralization and we here propose a new scenario, which considers icy environments as a transitory niche between water and emerged land. We then focus on exploring the main ecological relationships of Fungi with other organisms (other fungi, protozoans, animals and plants), as well as the origin of adaptations to certain specialized ecological niches within the group (lichens, black fungi and yeasts). Throughout this review we use an evolutionary and comparative-genomics perspective to understand fungal ecological diversity. Finally, we highlight the importance of genome-enabled inferences to envision plausible narratives and scenarios for important transitions.
真菌是一类高度多样化的异养真核生物，其特征为缺乏吞噬作用和存在几丁质细胞壁。虽然单细胞真菌并不罕见，但该类群的部分进化成功在于其能够无限期地生长为圆柱形多核细胞（菌丝）。凭借这些形态特征和极高的代谢多样性，真菌已经征服了众多生态位，并与其他生物形成了一个丰富多彩的相互作用世界。本文综述了指导真菌多样性的主要进化和生态过程。我们首先回顾了游动孢子谱系的生态学和进化以及陆地化过程，这是该领域的主要进化转变之一。已经提出了几种可能的真菌陆地化情景，我们在这里提出了一个新的情景，即考虑到冰环境是水和露出陆地之间的过渡生态位。然后，我们专注于探索真菌与其他生物体（其他真菌、原生动物、动物和植物）的主要生态关系，以及适应群体内某些特定生态位的起源（地衣、黑色真菌和酵母）。在整个综述中，我们使用进化和比较基因组学的观点来理解真菌的生态多样性。最后，我们强调了基于基因组推断的重要性，以设想重要转变的合理叙述和情景。
