It's not an exaggeration to say grasses as a family have adapted amazingly well to most habitats on earth. But there is at least one species that takes that adaptability to new levels.
|(c) James St. John, Wikipedia|
|Redman et al, 2002|
The symbiosis became even more complex when researchers announced that they had found a third party in the relationship several years later. It turns out that the fungal endophyte was infected with a double stranded RNA virus, and that its ability to confer thermotolerance on D. thermale was dependent on this infection!
|Márquez et al, 2007|
|Modified from Marin et al (2020), te Velthuis (2014), and J. St, John (Wikipedia)|
Marin, Yasmina & Hernández-Restrepo, Margarita & Crous, Pedro. (2020). Multi-locus phylogeny of the genus Curvularia and description of ten new species. Mycological Progress. 19. 559–588. 10.1007/s11557-020-01576-6.
Márquez LM, Redman RS, Rodriguez RJ, Roossinck MJ. A virus in a fungus in a plant: three-way symbiosis required for thermal tolerance. Science. 2007 Jan 26;315(5811):513-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1136237. Erratum in: Science. 2007 Apr 13;316(5822):201. PMID: 17255511.
Redman RS, Sheehan KB, Stout RG, Rodriguez RJ, Henson JM. Thermotolerance generated by plant/fungal symbiosis. Science. 2002 Nov 22;298(5598):1581. doi: 10.1126/science.1072191. PMID: 12446900.
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te Velthuis, A.J.W. Common and unique features of viral RNA-dependent polymerases. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 71, 4403–4420 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-014-1695-z