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mSphere of Influence: Fungal behavior as a framework for the evolution of emergent traits

Summary

This paper discusses how simple fungi called chytrids are being used to understand how complex traits like vision and behavior evolve. Chytrid zoospores are tiny swimming cells that can sense their environment through light and chemical signals, allowing them to find suitable places to grow. By studying these fungi, scientists can test long-standing ideas about how complex systems evolve from simpler parts working together.

Background

The paper explores how emergent traits arise from the integration of previously independent pathways, networks, or genes across different biological organizational levels. The author was influenced by Vrba and Gould’s classic work on hierarchical evolution, combined with studies on visual system evolution and chytrid fungal sensory biology.

Objective

To develop chytrid fungi as a model system for testing evolutionary hypotheses about how sensory pathways, motility, and cellular processes integrate to create emergent traits like vision and behavior. The work aims to understand the evolutionary processes driving the emergence of complex sensory systems and their role in pathogenicity.

Results

Chytrid zoospores demonstrate integrated sensory systems including chemosensory and visual capabilities that guide their motility and substrate recruitment behaviors. Recent advances in molecular tools and chytrid cell biology have revealed diverse sensory pathways and their integration with cellular processes.

Conclusion

Chytrids represent a tractable model system bridging organismal simplicity with sensory complexity for testing evolutionary hypotheses about emergent traits. Understanding chytrid sensory system evolution may illuminate how sensory pathways contribute to pathogenicity and virulence evolution.
  • Published in:mSphere,
  • Study Type:Commentary/Review,
  • Source: PMID: 39982053, DOI: 10.1128/msphere.00651-24
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