Chitin is the second most abundant biopolymer and functions as the main structural
component in a variety of living organisms. In nature, chitin rarely occurs in a pure form, but …

The endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria during eukaryogenesis has long been viewed as
an adaptive response to the oxygenation of Earth's surface environment, presuming a …

The global diversity of fungi has been estimated using several different approaches. There is
somewhere between 2–11 million estimated species, but the number of formally described …

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER• A “brilliant [and] entrancing”(The Guardian) journey into
the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and …

Eukaryotic life appears to have flourished surprisingly late in the history of our planet. This
view is based on the low diversity of diagnostic eukaryotic fossils in marine sediments of mid …

Molecular phylogeny indicates that metazoans (animals) emerged early in the
Neoproterozoic era, but physical evidence is lacking. The search for animal fossils from the …

In modern oceans, eukaryotic phytoplankton is dominated by lineages with red algal-derived
plastids such as diatoms, dinoflagellates, and coccolithophores. Despite the ecological …

Fungi are an essential component of any ecosystem and have diverse ecological roles,
ranging from endophytes to epiphytes and pathogens to saprobes. The current estimate of …

Earth has been habitable for 4.3 billion years, and the earliest rock record indicates the
presence of a microbial biosphere by at least 3.4 billion years ago—and disputably earlier …

Background Fungi have evolved for 1 billion years and due to their adaptability and
resilience can be found in multiple habitats around the globe. Among numerous species of …