The hyphae of water molds– fungus-like pathogens that trigger blight in crops– are particularly pointy.The physical fitness landscape of hyphae showing that natural shapes are constrained by a tipping point. To explore this concept, they examined the development rate of hyphae with various shapes to create a fitness landscape for hyphae. They discovered that the fitness landscape for hyphae consisted of an overhanging cliff, or tipping point, and that this acts as a barrier to development, strongly restricting the shapes of fungal hyphae.
The hyphae of water molds– fungus-like pathogens that cause blight in crops– are particularly pointy.The physical fitness landscape of hyphae revealing that natural shapes are constrained by a tipping point. Remarkably, the shapes of real hyphae found in nature assumed only a small subset of the possible shapes.An Achlya bisexualis hypha growing. To explore this concept, they examined the growth rate of hyphae with different shapes to produce a fitness landscape for hyphae. They discovered that the fitness landscape for hyphae consisted of an overhanging cliff, or tipping point, and that this acts as a barrier to evolution, highly limiting the shapes of fungal hyphae. Appropriately, they forecasted that hyphae with shapes near the verge of the tipping point would be particularly susceptible to little ecological, chemical, or genetic changes.An Achlya bisexualis hypha that was treated with a chemical that obstructs subcellular transport.
