User:A.twohig/Paleomycology/Kait.Snow Peer Review

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< User:A.twohig

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User:A.twohig/Paleomycology

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Paleomycology

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Overall, I think the information added to the article definitely improves and expands upon the original article! Despite saying that your article is short, I think you added a good amount to your article considering the original article only had several sentences. The information added gives more background about the importance of fossil fungi which I think was a good addition, and providing a variety of examples of this was a good idea. When reading the article it appeared to remain neutral overall which is good, and I think you touched upon a lot of different points that the original article didn't mention. The sources seem to be reliable as most are scientific articles or textbooks though I couldn't double check all of them since some were behind a pay-wall. The one source by Christine Layton may not be as reliable as the others since this individual is only a student at Cornell University and this website is just their blog. But it does say they have their PhD in Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, so it might be okay if there aren't other sources to choose from.

You mentioned that you needed help with formatting and organizing. I agree that this draft will be better with headings and sub-headings. To make this easier I will copy and paste your draft at the bottom of this page to show you what I would suggest for formatting. You don't need to include this if this isn't what you were going for, but I'll put it here as an option. I also think adding an image or two would be beneficial to improving your draft. I think if you could find an example of an image relating to paleomycology, such as a fossil or extant fungi, it could be put into the lead section of the article. In the section below where I copy and pasted your draft I placed two images in the article that you could potentially use. These images were ones I found already on wiki.

I think this is a good draft so far and I wish you luck as you make revisions!

v v v (My suggestions. I also added a few links to terms too.) v v v

Paleomycology is the study of fossil fungi. Paleomycology is considered a subdiscipline of paleobotany. While most fossils of mushrooms are discovered in amber, a great diversity of fossil fungi have been documented throughout the Phanerozoic.

History

Interest in fossilized fungi dates back to the early nineteenth century, with the first illustrated collection – focused on matching fossils to modern fungi – curated by Luigi Meschinelli in 1898. Historically, however, paleoecologists tend to place a larger focus on plant and animal macrofossils, partially due to the difficulty and unfamiliarity in identifying fungi physiology and morphology.

Importance

Archaeopteris species

A majority of fossilized fungi remains – such as spores and scleotia – are discovered in amber. Two particular discoveries of fossil fungi, one in the Baltic sea dated to the Eocene and another in the Dominican Republic dated to the Miocene, are important for comparison across timescales and for the development of the evolutionary record. A sample of amber from the Baltic site preserved a hexapod and the fungi Aspergillus collembolorum, which suggests the presence of parasitic relationships as early as 34 million years ago.

Fossil fungi presents indirect evidence of when symbiotic relationships coevolved, such as saprophytism or commensalism among mycorrhizae or lichen. The presence of wood-rotting fungi in Callixylon whiteanum, one of the oldest identified trees, suggests that saprophytic interactions between plants and fungi evolved when wood first began to develop.

Role

Fungi require a carbon source for growth and development, which is provided by the decomposition of organic plant and animal matter.

Mycorrhizae

Mycorrhizal network

Mycorrhizal relationships between plant and fungi are mutualistic: the fungus gains a carbon source, while the plant receives nutrient minerals. Discovery of fungi in the Early Devonian Rhynie chert, when plants were root and leafless, suggests that fungi played a large role in the evolution of plant life into terrestrial ecosystems. Fungal endophytes and epiphytes, similarly to mycorrhizae, establish a symbiotic relationship with plant hosts through which they obtain their necessary nutrients. However, the lack of fossil endophytes on plant leaves prior to the Cretaceous period suggests that leaves as a fungal habitat were exploited by fungi after angiosperms evolved about 130 million years ago.

Fossil Record

The use of fungal epi- and endophytes in the fossil record can be used to determine the evolutionary modifications required to colonize certain ecosystems, as well as to identify the environmental tolerances of fungi, their potential as palaeoclimatological proxies, and future use in identifying extinct morphologies. Evidence of bioeroder fungi has been identified in carbonate substrates (such as in shells) in which organic carbon-containing matter was extracted, indicating the presence of a mutualistic or parasitic relationship between a fungi and host.

Food Chain

Fungi have not only been identified as bioeroders, but also as part of a food chain. The presence of fungal hyphae and spores in coprolite suggests that arthropods depended on fungi as a food course.

Geological Processes

Fossilized fungal organisms are not only important for examining interrelationships between fungi, plants, and animals, but also important to geological evolutionary history. The weathering of rocks and nutrient cycling in mineral media show the impact and spread of microbial fungi in geological processes.