The early bird got...Truffle?

Humans and many mammals like truffles
.
Now, new evidence shows that birds may also find and spread these ecologically important fungi
.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Florida found that two common ground-dwelling birds in Patagonia often eat truffles and pass live truffle spores through their feces
.

"
Truffles are essentially mushrooms that grow underground .
Unlike ground mushrooms that release spores into the air, truffles rely on animals to eat them to spread the spores," the senior author of the study and associate professor at the University of Florida/International School of Plant Pathology Matthew E.
Smith said
.

Marcos Caiafa, the first author of the study, said: "In the past, it was thought that only mammals could eat and spread truffle spores, so our study is the first time that birds do the same
.
" Recently received a PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Florida/International Academy of Agricultural Sciences School of Agriculture and Life Sciences
.
Smith is Caiafa's thesis supervisor
.

The term "truffle" includes hundreds of underground fungi, of which only a few are truffles that people associate with high-end cooking
.
Although non-cooking truffles may not appeal to human gourmets, each truffle has evolved to attract different animals to help its spread
.

Smith said that the spread of truffle spores is an important part of a healthy forest ecosystem, because many tree species have a symbiotic relationship with truffles, which are parasitic on tree roots
.

"These fungi form mycorrhizas, and the fungi help plants absorb nutrients and exchange sugars from plants," explains Caiafa, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside
.

The two species of birds they studied—chucao tapaculos and black-throated huet-huets—not only eat truffles, they seem to seek them specifically
.
Researchers say that in the past, these birds ate invertebrates, seeds and fruits, but their consumption of fungi has not been recorded before
.

Questions about birds and truffles appeared in an early research project in Patagonia
.
We work in the forest, raking the soil, digging truffles, and we noticed that these birds have been following us, checking where we damaged the soil
.
Then we found large chunks of truffles
.
Marcos even saw a bird eating truffles in front of him
.
All of this makes us wonder, are these birds looking for truffles?" Smith said
.

To confirm this hypothesis, the research team collected the feces of chucao tapaculos and black-throated huet-huets and tested their truffle DNA
.
They found truffle DNA in 42% of chuao tupaculo's feces and 38% of huet-huet's feces
.
They also used a special microscopy technique, fluorescence microscopy, to confirm that the spores in the feces are viable, which indicates that birds are spreading truffles to new areas
.

"DNA-based diet analysis is exciting because it provides new insights into the interactions between organisms that would otherwise be difficult to observe directly," one of the co-authors of the study and a former postdoctoral researcher in the Smith Laboratory Said Michelle Jusino
.

"Moreover, since sampling manure will not have a negative impact on target species, I think these methods are invaluable for future research and protection of common and rare species," said Jusino, who is now the Forest Mycology Department of the Northern Research Station of the U.
S.
Forest Service Research biologist at the research center
.

The authors of the study believe that some truffles in Patagonia may have evolved to attract birds
.

Some truffles eaten by these birds are brightly colored, similar to local berries
.
Our future research may look at whether there is an evolutionary adaptation-truffles have evolved to look more like berries eaten by birds," Smith said
.

references:

"Discovering the role of Patagonian birds in the dispersal of truffles and other mycorrhizal fungi" by Marcos V.
Caiafa, Michelle A.
Jusino, Ann C.
Wilkie, Iván A.
Díaz, Kathryn E.
Sieving and Matthew E.
Smith, 28 October 2021,  Current Biology .

DOI: 10.