Fungal symbioses are one of the key attributes of land plants. The twenty first century has witnessed the increasing use of molecular data complemented by cytological studies in understanding the nature of bryophyte-fungal associations and unravelling the early evolution of fungal symbioses at the foot of the land plant tree. Isolation and resynthesis experiments have shed considerable light on...

Mycorrhizas usually engage in mutualism, which soil fungi contribute minerals to plants that turn supply photosynthetically fixed carbon (C) their fungal partners (Smith & Read, 2008). However, the functional status of such symbioses orchids remains somewhat controversial. Although all depend on symbiotic for essential nutrients (including C) during initial development (Dearnaley et al., 2016),...

Madagascar is known for its high diversity and endemism of fauna flora. Fungi, however, have been largely overlooked in evolution studies on the island, whether fungi exhibit same patterns as animals plants has yet to be further examined. We collected fungal sporocarps ectomycorrhizal (EcM) roots during three opportunistic surveys five forests generated a dataset Internal Transcribed Spacer (IT...

Fungi are ubiquitous in Arctic soils, where they function as symbionts and decomposers and may affect the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems subjected to climate change, and yet little is known about soil fungi at high latitudes. Here we review data from recent molecular studies to determine broad patterns in Arctic soil fungal ecology. The data indicate comparatively high fungal diversit...