This is a

This is CBSi in the world. I'm John Bachelor with Thomas Halliday paleontologist and writing

wonderfully of other lands his new book a journey through earth's

extinct worlds we now go to a part of the success of agrarian life, the root system.

But did I know to pay attention to it until Thomas's book?

No.

We go to the Devonian 470 million years ago, and it's called the myco-riseal. What is that Thomas?

Well myco-risey is composed of two parts, myco refers to fungus and the rhizer refers to roots and it's essentially a way in which fungi and plants interact with one another to extract the maximum benefit really from the from the soil around from the earth around them and really

this collaboration is crucial to the move of life onto land. I mean we tend to think

when we think about life appearing on land that there's some sort of hardy pioneer that suddenly

emerges out of the sea and wanders up on its fins. But really that's not how life works. Life thrives

in collaboration and the movement of communities rather than individuals.

And Liny in modern day Aberdeensha, or in the middle of the Caledonides Mountains in the Devonian

is one of these places where we find evidence of these real tight interactions between

fungi plants and animals that really characterize the early move on to land.

Without the assistance of fungi plants would not have to have been able to develop

roots and to exploit the mineral resources of the rocks around them and the plants

themselves being able to extract energy from light that's really handy for the fungus as well.

So you get this collaboration, but you also get parasitism.

We have evidence from rhiney of a fungi that are invading individual plant cells,

which are then trying to isolate those cells by hardening the surface or

expanding them.

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