An arbuscular mycorrhiza from the 407-million-year-old Windyfield Chert identified through advanced fluorescence and Raman imaging.

Abstract

Mycorrhizal associations between fungi and plants are a fundamental aspect of terrestrial ecosystems. Mycorrhizas occur in c. 85% of extant plants, yet their geological record remains sparse. Rare fossil evidence from early terrestrial environments offers crucial insights into these ancient symbioses, but visualizing fossil fungi at the microscale within plant tissues is challenging. Here, we combine confocal laser scanning microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) to investigate a newly identified fungus and cellular structures of a 407-Myr-old plant from the Windyfield Chert, a stratigraphically distinct fossiliferous unit from Rhynie (Scotland). We also applied Raman spectroscopy to investigate the carbon framework of both fungal and plant tissues. This integrative approach revealed fungal structures in unprecedented detail. The fungus, Rugososporomyces lavoisierae gen. nov., sp. nov., exhibits features resembling extant Glomeromycotina arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. This is the first record of mycorrhizas from the Windyfield Chert. FLIM further distinguished features at the subcellular level, while Raman spectroscopy showed that fungal arbuscules and vesicles of the plant water-conducting cells underwent geological alterations, resulting in a similar chemical composition. These findings expand our understanding of ancient and extremely rare plant-fungal symbioses and highlight the potential of confocal-FLIM for advancing palaeobotanical research.

Code and data availability

The authors deposited all confocal imaging data used in this fossil mycorrhiza study (CLSM/FLIM datasets of Rugososporomyces lavoisierae in Aglaophyton majus) in a public Zenodo repository under a CC BY 4.0 license. This is a paper-specific, publicly accessible dataset of the phenotyping/imaging measurements.