the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

How gene swapping helped build the planet's decomposers

How gene swapping helped build the planet's decomposers Sadie Harley Scientific Editor Alexander Pol Deputy Editor Decomposers are crucial for keeping Earth habitable, breaking down dead biomass and returning key nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, to the ecosystem. Most decomposers, including fungi, survive through osmotrophy—a means of feeding by absorbing dissolved nutrients rather than engulfing prey. But how this method of feeding repeatedly arose across the eukaryotic...