Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution holds that all species are related and gradually change over generations. In a population, the genetic variations affect the phenotypes of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed on to their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the peppered moth and flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology.
The Agaricomycetes are a class of fungi in the division Basidiomycota. The taxon is roughly identical to that defined for the Homobasidiomycetes by Hibbett & Thorn, with the inclusion of Auriculariales and Sebacinales. It includes not only mushroom-forming fungi, but also most species placed in the deprecated taxa Gasteromycetes and Homobasidiomycetes. Within the subdivision Agaricomycotina, which already excludes the smut and rust fungi, the Agaricomycetes can be further defined by the exclusion of the classes Tremellomycetes and Dacrymycetes, which are generally considered to be jelly fungi. However, a few former "jelly fungi", such as Auricularia, are classified in the Agaricomycetes. According to a 2008 estimate, Agaricomycetes include 17 orders, 100 families, 1147 genera, and about 21000 species. Modern molecular phylogenetic analyses have been since used to help define several new orders in the Agaricomycetes: Amylocorticiales, Jaapiales, Stereopsidales, and Lepidostromatales.
Taphrina is a fungal genus within the Ascomycota that causes leaf and catkin curl diseases and witch's brooms of certain flowering plants. One of the more commonly observed species causes peach leaf curl. Taphrina typically grow as yeasts during one phase of their life cycles, then infect plant tissues in which typical hyphae are formed, and ultimately they form a naked layer of asci on the deformed, often brightly pigmented surfaces of their hosts. No discrete fruit body is formed outside of the gall-like or blister-like tissues of the hosts. The asci form a layer lacking paraphyses, and they lack croziers. The ascospores frequently bud into multiple yeast cells within the asci. Phylogenetically, Taphrina is a member of a basal group within the Ascomycota, and type genus for the subphylum Taphrinomycotina, the class Taphrinomycetes, and order Taphrinales.
Dikarya is a subkingdom of Fungi that includes the divisions Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, both of which in general produce dikaryons, may be filamentous or unicellular, but are always without flagella. The Dikarya are most of the so-called "higher fungi", but also include many anamorphic species that would have been classified as molds in historical literature. Phylogenetically the two divisions regularly group together. In a 1998 publication, Thomas Cavalier-Smith referred to this group as the Neomycota.
The Tremellomycetes are a class of dimorphic fungi in the Agaricomycotina. Some species have gelatinous basidiocarps or (microscopically) a sacculate parenthesome. There are six orders, 17 families, and 39 genera in the Tremellomycetes. Tremellomycetes include yeasts, dimorphic taxa, and species that form complex fruiting bodies. Tremellomycetes include some fungi that are human and animal pathogens in the genera Cryptococcus, Naganishia, Papiliotrema, and Trichosporon and some fungi that are cultivated for food in the genera Tremella and Naematelia.
Fungi diverged from other life around 1.5 billion years ago, with the glomaleans branching from the "higher fungi" (dikaryans) at ~570 million years ago, according to DNA analysis. Fungi probably colonized the land during the Cambrian, over 500 million years ago,, and possibly 635 million years ago during the Ediacaran, but terrestrial fossils only become uncontroversial and common during the Devonian, 400 million years ago.
In biology, a phylum is a level of classification or taxonomic rank below kingdom and above class. Traditionally, in botany the term division has been used instead of phylum, although the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants accepts the terms as equivalent. Depending on definitions, the animal kingdom Animalia contains about 31 phyla, the plant kingdom Plantae contains about 14 phyla, and the fungus kingdom Fungi contains about 8 phyla. Current research in phylogenetics is uncovering the relationships among phyla within larger clades like Ecdysozoa and Embryophyta.
Calostoma is a genus of 29 species of gasteroid fungi in the suborder Sclerodermatineae. Like other gasteroid fungi, Calostoma do not have the spore discharge mechanism associated with typical gilled fungi (ballistospory), and instead have enclosed spore-bearing structures. Resembling round puffballs with raised, brightly colored spore openings (ostioles), elevated on a thick, gelatinous stalks, species have been collected in regions of deciduous, temperate, tropical or subtropical forests. Their distribution includes eastern North America, Central America, Asia, and Australasia. The common name given to some species, "prettymouth", alludes to the brightly colored raised openings (ostioles) that may somewhat resemble lips. Other common names include "hotlips" and "puffball in aspic".
Geoglossaceae is a family of fungi in the order Geoglossales, class Geoglossomycetes. These fungi are broadly known as earth tongues. The ascocarps of most species in the family Geoglossaceae are terrestrial and are generally small, dark in color, and club-shaped with a height of 2–8 cm. The ascospores are typically light-brown to dark-brown and are often multiseptate. Other species of fungi have been known to parasitize ascocarps. The use of a compound microscope is needed for accurate identification.
Peltigerales is an order of lichen-forming fungi belonging to the class Lecanoromycetes in the division Ascomycota. The taxonomy of the group has seen numerous changes; it was formerly often treated as a suborder of the order Lecanorales. It contains two suborders, eight families and about 45 genera such as Lobaria and Peltigera.
The Candelariales are an order of fungi in the monotypic class Candelariomycetes. It contains the families Candelariaceae and Pycnoraceae. The order was circumscribed by Jolanta Miadlikowska, François Lutzoni, and Helge Thorsten Lumbsch as part of a comprehensive phylogenetic classification of the kingdom Fungi published in 2007. The class Candelariomycetes was created in 2018 by Hermann Voglmayr and Walter Jaklitsch.
Wayne Paul Maddison, is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity at the departments of zoology and botany at the University of British Columbia, and the Director of the Spencer Entomological Collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
John Waldo Taylor is an American scientist who researches fungal evolution and ecology. He is professor of the graduate school in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Michael Douglas Crisp is an emeritus professor in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University located in Canberra. In 1976, he gained a PhD from the University of Adelaide, studying long-term vegetation changes in arid zones of South Australia. In 2020, Crisp moved to Brisbane, where he has an honorary position at the University of Queensland. Together with colleagues, he revised various pea-flowered legume genera.
Barbara Ann Whitlock is a botanist, who earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, with her dissertation Systematics and evolution of chocolate and its relatives c. 2000, an interest which continues.
Saccharomyceta is a clade of fungi containing Pezizomycotina and Saccharomycotina, or all Ascomycete fungi except Taphrinomycotina according to the 2007 fungal phylogeny "The Mycota: A Comprehensive Treatise on Fungi as Experimental Systems for Basic and Applied Research" and Tedersoo et al. 2018.
Orthomycotina is a clade of fungi containing Agaricomycotina and Ustilaginomycotina, or all Basidiomycete fungi except Pucciniomycotina according to the 2007 fungal phylogeny "The Mycota: A Comprehensive Treatise on Fungi as Experimental Systems for Basic and Applied Research" and Tedersoo et al. 2018.
Schizosaccharomyceta is a clade of fungi within Taphrinomycotina containing all members of the clade except Neolectomycetes and Taphrinomycetes according to the 2007 fungal phylogeny "The Mycota: A Comprehensive Treatise on Fungi as Experimental Systems for Basic and Applied Research" and Tedersoo et al. 2018. Its members are single-celled and yeast-like and include Pneumocystis and Schizosaccharomycetes and Archaeorhizomycetes
A. Elizabeth "Betsy" Arnold is an American evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Plant Sciences and Curator of the Robert L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium at the University of Arizona. Her research considers fungal biology. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.
Cécile Gueidan is a mycologist and lichenologist who applies morphological and molecular biological methods to the origin and taxonomy of fungi that live in lichen symbioses and within rocks.
