Comments on: Attack of the killer tomato fungus driven by mobile weapons package

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:29:07 +0000

PLS – the four chromosomes are a quarter of the F.oxysporum genome!! Not entirely sure how that works with the 44% statistic but it’s there in the paper.

By: Prof-like Substance

Prof-like Substance — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:05:09 +0000

Great story. The movement of whole chromosomes is an interesting twist, considering a lot of HGT is much smaller chunks of DNA unless its endosymbiotic. How big are the moving chromosomes? If together they make up 44% of the genome I’m guessing they’re not tiny.
Fungi are still a pretty static group, in terms of their phylogenetics though. Briana, if you want to see a mess, go thumb through the dinoflagellate lit for a while. That group has never seen a genome it wouldn’t modify into some strange configuration and gene uptake, organelle uptake, whatever.

By: Briana

Briana — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:44:28 +0000

Methods of genetic diversity is such a mess. How do they ever sort these things out? Stupid fungus is ruining the ornamental phylogenetic tree of life!
Thanks for the post. It’s a shame that fungi are not studied much unless it has some practical agricultural need behind it. Stories like this show how amazing fungi are and worthy of some attention. At least to me…

By: complex field

complex field — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:38:01 +0000

But…spontaneous increase of information is impossible!!! Oh. That is only in the ID/creationism world. Carry on.