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Fungi trapped in amber—a fossil legacy frozen in time

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Abstract

Amber is an exceptional organic mineral found all over the world that occasionally contains fossilised organisms. The physical and chemical characteristics of amber pose a challenge when looking for microfossils, such as microfungi. However, also, macrofungi are rarely found in amber, probably because of their ephemeral nature. Yet, in the course of this review, 137 records of non-lichnenised fungi and 182 of lichens were found, the earliest reaching back to the eighteenth century. The findings range from the Carboniferous (ca. 310 Ma) to the Upper Miocene (ca. 10 Ma). About 10% were macrofungi, the rest microfungi (Ascomycetes, Deuteromycetes) or lichens. Identification poses problems due to the fragmentary remains which, as a rule, are inaccessibly entombed in fossilised resin. Most non-lichenised taxa per Ma were, according to this review, recovered from Neogene deposits, whilst lichens showed a marked diversity surge during the Palaeogene. Overall, the record of fungal fossils in amber seems to mirror the diversity patterns through deep time. Nevertheless, the few records from the Palaeozoic and the Lower to Mid-Mesozoic call for the development of additional tools for detection and identification.

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Acknowledgements

I sincerely thank Heinrich Dörfelt (Jena/Germany) for his valuable comments on the manuscript. For the provision of electronic images, I am indebted to David S. Hibbett (Worcester/ Massachusetts) and George Poinar Jr. (Corvallis/Oregon), and again to George Poinar Jr. for our fruitful dialogue.

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Halbwachs, H. Fungi trapped in amber—a fossil legacy frozen in time. Mycol Progress 18, 879–893 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-019-01498-y

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