This Fungus Has More Than 17,000 Sexes

Advances in sequencing technologies have finally allowed researchers to zero in on the genetic diversity underlying the incredible mating system of shelf fungi.

Written byJames M. Gaines

| 3 min read

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Trichaptum abietinum growing on a pine log

Image credit:Dabao Sun Lu

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Some common mushrooms likely have more than 17,000 sexes, researchers report March 31 in PLOS Genetics. The work could help us better understand the evolution of sexual reproduction as well as showcases the increasing power of genome sequencing.

While scientists have long suspected that certain species of fungi have thousands or even tens of thousands of biological sexes, the new research employed cutting edge genetic tools to confirm the extreme diversity of sexes in Trichaptum mushrooms.

“The pace of advances in DNA sequencing are just mind boggling,” says Joseph Heitman, a geneticist and infectious disease expert at Duke University who wasn’t involved in the study but has investigated fungal mating strategies before. “This kind of study would have been cost and time prohibitive even five years ago.”

Trichaptum is a group of woody, plate-like mushrooms (shelf fungi) that commonly grow on trees and fallen logs in cooler parts of the ...

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Meet the Author

James M. Gaines
James Gaines is a freelance science journalist in Seattle, Washington. He got his start at City University in London, where he received a master's degree in science journalism. Since then, his writing has appeared in outlets such as Nature, Undark, Atlas Obscura, and Knowable Magazine. He also works as a fact-checker and a regular contributor to the YouTube channel SciShow. He once had an alligator snapping turtle as a pet for about two hours.
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