ArticleAnnals of botany2025
The Geosiphon-Nostoc symbiosis: recent elaboration or remnant of an enduring association?
Article in Annals of botany, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsFungal associations with photosynthetic microbes have regularly been invoked as precursors to the evolution of land plants and their mycorrhizal associations. The fungus Geosiphon pyriformis (Glomeromycotina) deviates from its arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM)-forming relatives through the presence of an intracellular symbiosis with Nostoc cyanobacteria and is frequently viewed as the only extant representative of an ancient and formerly widespread association between fungi and cyanobacteria that occupied early terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we add to growing evidence suggesting the Geosiphon-Nostoc-like associations are not ancestral to AM associations and did not occupy landscapes prior to the evolution of land plants. In addition, we discuss the underlying drivers contributing to the origination and persistence of this argument and other ways in which Geosiphon has been misunderstood.
methodsWe inferred time-scaled phylogenies of Glomeromycotina and leveraged ancestral state reconstruction both to evaluate the plausibility of a Geosiphon-like ancestral state while highlighting the additional complexity required to maintain support for a Geosiphon-like ancestral state. KEY
resultsOur analyses overwhelmingly recovered the Geosiphon-like state as being derived from AM associations.
conclusionsOur work illustrates the diverse ways in which Geosiphon has been misunderstood and adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the Geosiphon-like ecology is derived from AM-forming ancestors and did not occupy terrestrial ecosystems prior to the evolution of land plants. We conclude by discussing outstanding questions pertaining to the ecology and evolution of Glomeromycotina fungi.
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