Title The first fungal partners of early land plants -- the origin and evolution of mycorrhizal lifestyle in Mucoromycota fungi

Abstract Mycorrhizal association between fungi and plants is one of the most common symbioses on earth and play critical roles in today’s terrestrial ecosystems. The two main types of mycorrhizal association include the arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) of Glomeromycotina (Mucoromycota) and ectomycorrhizae (EcM) formed primarily by members from the crown fungal lineages Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. The enigmatic fungal order Endogonales, from the early- diverging Mucoromycota, represent an independent origin of EcM in fungi. Moreover, some members of Endogonales form mycorrhizal-like relationships with various early-diverging plant lineages, leading to the recent hypothesis that Endogonales were one of the first mycorrhizal partners of the earliest land plants and key to the formation of the early terrestrial ecosystems. Using metagenomic, phylogenomic and reverse ecology approaches, I generated genome data, characterized the genomic features and inferred the evolution of mycorrhizal lifestyle in Endogonales. My work supports the hypothesis that Endogonales share the common molecular tool kit with EcM species from Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. The molecular dating analyses are consistent with endogonalean ancestors co-existing with the earliest land plants, lending support to the hypothesis that Endogonales were one of the first mycorrhizal partners of earliest land plants. Together with arbuscular mycorrhizae, Endogonales represent ancient and independent origins of mycorrhizae within Mucoromycota, suggesting that nonflagellated fungi colonized land prior to land plants.

Biography My Ph.D training at the University of British Columbia focused on the inference of higher-level phylogenetic relationships among the major bryophyte groups in the context of early land plant evolution. I continued my interest in deep phylogeny reconstruction and expanded my research into mycology when I worked as a post-doc with Dr. Mary Berbee at UBC starting in 2013. I reconstructed the origin and evolution of plant-fungus association by studying the evolution of fungal pectinases using phylogenomic approaches. I am currently a post-doc with Dr. Joseph Spatafora at Oregon State University, where I am leading several research projects on the phylogenomics and comparative genomics of early-diverging ‘zygomycete’ fungi. Through the years I have developed my research interests in inferring the origin, evolution and function of plant-fungus association, particularly how early fungi and plants interacted with each other during their colonization of the terrestrial landscape.