Genomic basis of ecological and evolutionary success in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

丛枝菌根真菌（AMF）是一种重要的生态生物，与80%以上的陆地植物和许多重要经济作物的根形成共生关系。在这种共生关系中，真菌增加了植物对土壤中营养物质的吸收，如磷酸盐和硝酸盐，而植物则提供真菌生存和繁殖所必需的碳水化合物（糖）。因此，AMF代表着重要的“碳”汇。它们也被认为是陆地生态系统中的“基石互惠主义者”，因为它们在土壤中的存在与植物和土壤微生物多样性的增加有关。除了具有明显的生态重要性外，AMF还因其独特的细胞和进化特征而引起研究的兴趣。它们的细胞是独一无二的，因为每个细胞都含有多个，而且据说是分散的细胞核。他们还被认为在没有有性繁殖的情况下进化了5亿多年。总的来说，这些特征与大多数真核生物相比是不一致的，但尽管如此，人们对它们的遗传学和基因组学几乎一无所知。这一点很重要，因为了解它们的生态和进化特性所需的大部分信息都编码在它们的基因组中。

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are an ecologically important group of organisms that form mutualistic associations with the roots of over 80% of land plants and many economically important crops. In this symbiosis, the fungus increases the plant`s uptake of nutrients, such as phosphate and nitrate, from the soil while the plant provides the carbohydrates (sugars) necessary for the fungus to survive and propagate. AMF therefore represent important "carbon" sinks. They are also considered "keystone mutualists" in terrestrial ecosystems because their presence in the soil is correlated with an increase in the diversity of plants and soil microbes. In addition to their obvious ecological importance, AMF are interesting to study because of their unique cellular and evolutionary features. Their cells are unique as each contains multiple and, supposedly, divergent nuclei. They are also thought to have evolved for more than 500 million years in the absence of sexual reproduction. Altogether, these features are at odds compared to most eukaryotes but, despite this, virtually nothing is known about their genetics and genomics. This is significant because most of the information necessary for understanding their ecological and evolutionary peculiarities is encoded in their genomes.