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Plant-fungal Interactions

How do root symbioses establish in mycoheterotrophic plants?

Hyphenschlaufen in der dritten Zelllage der Wurzelknöllenchen von Afrothismia saingei.

Mycoheterotrophic plants are parasitic: they have no chlorophyll and obtain their food from fungi. This requires specific structures on the contact surface between the plant root and the fungal mycelium. These can be traced morpho-anatomically, for example in the genus Afrothismia (Imhof et al. 2020 Mycorrhiza).

How do distribution patterns evolve in fungal-plant symbioses?

Almost all plants interact with fungi. In the case of close symbioses, such as mycorrhizae or endophytic fungi, the two partners influence each other's dispersal patterns. Dispersal, speciation, extinction and recombination shape these partnerships over millions of years. Phylogenetic analyses make it possible to trace these processes, for example in the case of a large group of ectomycorrhizal fungi, the Russulaceae, in the Neotropics (Hackel et al. 2022).