Fungi are crucial components of modern ecosystems. They may have had an important role
in the colonization of land by eukaryotes, and in the appearance and success of land plants …

The existence of a terrestrial Precambrian (more than 542 Myr ago) biota has been largely
inferred from indirect chemical and geological evidence associated with palaeosols,, the …

Abstract The Swaziland Supergroup, Barberton Mountain Land, South Africa, has long been
regarded as a promising location for the Earth's oldest fossils because it includes some of …

Abstract The 3,430-million-year-old Strelley Pool Chert (SPC)(Pilbara Craton, Australia) is a
sedimentary rock formation containing laminated structures of probable biological origin …

Animals and fungi have radically distinct morphologies, yet both evolved within the same
eukaryotic supergroup: Opisthokonta,. Here we reconstructed the trajectory of genetic …

Bryozoans (also known as ectoprocts or moss animals) are aquatic, dominantly sessile, filter-
feeding lophophorates that construct an organic or calcareous modular colonial (clonal) …

Molecular phylogeny and biogeochemistry indicate that eukaryotes differentiated early in
Earth history. Sequence comparisons of small-subunit ribosomal RNA genes suggest a …

Although the notion of an early origin and diversification of life on Earth during the Archaean
eon has received increasing support in geochemical, sedimentological and …

Fungi are the principal degraders of biomass in terrestrial ecosystems and establish
important interactions with plants and animals,,. However, our current understanding of …

Ascomycetes are the largest group of true fungi, and characteristically produce their sexual
spores in a sac-like structure called the ascus. They include medicinal agents (such as …