Molecular Evidence for the Early Colonization of Land by Fungi and Plants

2001/08/10 by Daniel S. Heckman, David M. Geiser, Brooke R. Eidell +3 · 1,026 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Bacteria #Biology #Botany #Colonization #Ecology #Fungus #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Marine fungi #Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology #Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions #Organism #Paleontology #Symbiosis

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1061457

published in Science 293(5532), 1129-1133 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)

openalex publication_date 2001/08/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

The colonization of land by eukaryotes probably was facilitated by a partnership (symbiosis) between a photosynthesizing organism (phototroph) and a fungus. However, the time when colonization occurred remains speculative. The first fossil land plants and fungi appeared 480 to 460 million years ago (Ma), whereas molecular clock estimates suggest an earlier colonization of land, about 600 Ma. Our protein sequence analyses indicate that green algae and major lineages of fungi were present 1000 Ma and that land plants appeared by 700 Ma, possibly affecting Earth's atmosphere, climate, and evolution of animals in the Precambrian.

Citations

• Bangiomorpha pubescensn. gen., n. sp.: implications for the evolution of sex, multicellularity, and the Mesoproterozoic/Neoproterozoic radiation of eukaryotes
• The origin and early evolution of plants on land
• Evolutionary analysis of 58 proteins encoded in six completely sequenced chloroplast genomes: Revised molecular estimates of two seed plant divergence times
• Determining divergence times with a protein clock: Update and reevaluation
• Glomalean Fungi from the Ordovician
• A Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth

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