Mushroom relations
Harvard researchers are using one of the most comprehensive fungal “family trees” ever created to unlock evolutionary secrets. As reported in PLoS ONE on July 18, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Anne Pringle and Ben Wolfe, a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Center for Systems Biology, studied the genetics of more than 100 species of Amanita mushrooms — about one-sixth of the genus’s total diversity — to create an elaborate phylogeny showing how they are related. Amanita mushrooms have appeared in popular culture ranging from “Fantasia” to the Super Mario Bros. video games. Although it includes a number of edible species, such as the Amanita caesarea, the group is probably best known for its many toxic species, including the death-cap mushroom. Armed with the Amanita family tree, Pringle and Wolfe were able to determine that Amanita evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose...