It turns out that mushrooms commonly found in the Northern Hemisphere may have 'more than 17,000 genders'
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Many animals, including humans, are biologically said to have two genders, male and female, but some birds have four genders, and there are only two genders in nature. There is none. A new study reports that mushrooms commonly inhabited in the Northern Hemisphere may have a whopping 'more than 17,000 genders'.
Large-scale fungal strain sequencing unravels the molecular diversity in mating loci maintained by long-term balancing selection | PLOS Genetics
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1010097
This Fungus Has More Than 17,000 Sexes | The Scientist Magazine®
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/this-fungus-has-more-than-17-000-sexes-69930
There are not only two types of gender that exist in nature, male and female, but there was also a hypothesis that fungi such as mushrooms and molds have 'thousands to tens of thousands of biological genders', but it is very difficult. It was very difficult to determine the sex of small fungi, so the truth was not clear. However, in recent years, the rapid progress of microbial DNA sequencing technology has made this kind of research feasible.
Therefore, a research team at the University of Oslo, Norway, conducted an experiment to confirm the existence of sex in mushrooms called Trichaptum (genus Shihaitake) , which are commonly found in the cool regions of the northern hemisphere. The genus Shihaitake is a kind of mushroom that grows in a plate shape along trees and logs, and it is said that it was selected because it is relatively easy to grow in the laboratory. 'I think the genus Shihaitake is very pretty, but it's not a very flashy mushroom,' said Inger Skrede, a fungal biologist at the University of Oslo.
The research team collected as many as 180 samples from all over the world for three species of mushrooms of the genus Shihaitake, collected spores from each strain, and cultivated them on an agar plate. After growing for a few weeks, the DNA was analyzed to see if it could be paired and mated with spores grown from other specimens.
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Past studies have suggested that the sex of mushrooms is regulated by two genomic regions, 'MATA' and 'MATB', and that they have many alleles in these regions. The research team identified exactly which parts of MATA and MATB were important for sex determination and examined the number of associated mutations in the two regions. As a result, it was found that there are 17,550 allele combinations in the genus Shihaitake, and that the same number of genders may exist.
It's unclear why mushrooms have so many genders, but the co-author of the treatise, David Peris, a geneticist at the University of Oslo, said mushrooms have a lifestyle of 'staying in a specific place and breeding.' It points out that it may have something to do with.
For example, if the mushrooms are of only male and female sex, the same mushroom will be released, and adjacent spores are more likely to be of the same sex, increasing the likelihood of inability to mate. Therefore, having many genders increases the probability of mating with adjacent spores, which is advantageous for the survival of the species. In addition, the genetic diversity of spores released from the same mushroom makes it easier to avoid the disadvantages of inbreeding, and the diverse alleles make it easier to adapt to changes in the environment.
Duur Aanen, an evolutionary biologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in this study, pointed out that the big question remains, 'What are the benefits of having such extreme diversity?' 'Even having just 100 alleles is quite environmentally friendly.' 'What are the benefits of having the 101st allele?' Aanen said.
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