麻豆淫院

A team of environmental scientists at Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research, in New Zealand, the University of Adelaide and the University of Auckland has found that the now-extinct flightless bird moa once consumed the colorful, truffle-like fungi that still grows in New Zealand. In their study in the journal Biology Letters, the group conducted a DNA analysis of fossilized moa dung.

As the global climate has warmed, scientists have continued to learn more about the ways plants and animals adapt to changes in precipitation, humidity levels and temperature. Among the findings, truffles, a type of fungus that grows underground, form symbiotic relationships with tree roots, a dynamic found to benefit forests during times of climate change.

In this new study, the team, as part of their research involving the impact of climate change on forests in New Zealand, wondered about the likelihood of truffles offering assistance as the climate there changes. They noted that for truffles to survive long term, they need a spore disperser鈥攁nother plant or animal to carry their spores to new locations.

In other places, such as the U.S., truffle spores are dispersed by mammals such as squirrels. New Zealand does not have such mammals; the truffles there have traditionally relied on birds to serve as a disperser. But because truffles grow underground, birds need to be large in order to dig them up鈥攎oa, the researchers noted, would have made perfect dispersers, except that humans hunted them to extinction in the 1400s. Up until now, no evidence of the extinct birds eating the truffles had been found.

The evidence for moa truffle consumption came courtesy of a fossilized ball of poop (coprolite) found in a cave near the upper T膩kaka River catchment in a northwest part of Nelson and another discovered in a museum. DNA testing showed that both of the moa that had left behind the coprolites had recently consumed several truffle-like species, including the most famous today, Gallacea scleroderma.

The researchers suggest that New Zealand's forests may be in trouble as the climate around them changes鈥攊f truffles cannot find a way to persist, the trees will find it harder going.

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