> That mutual coexistence is now tipping out of balance. Fungi are surging beyond the climate zones they long lived in, adapting to environments that would once have been inimical, learning new behaviors that let them leap between species in novel ways. While executing those maneuvers, they are becoming more successful pathogens, threatening human health in ways—and numbers—they could not achieve before.
Still early stages, but signs point to fungi becoming deadlier.
It's a bit of creative writing, mostly. Fungi evolve, that's what they do. And they evolve very rapidly. They also have great staying power, with spores that have covered every square millimeter of the earth pretty much for the entire history of life on earth. You're breathing some in right now.
Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi. Meanwhile, insects (bees, ants, others) actually farm fungi as part of their food and for defense. This all points to a really profound and fundamental fact: We have been co-existing with fungi every second of every person's entire lives.
If fungi are killing more people, it's because people have changed, not the fungi.
>Animals evolved warm-bloodedness partly to improve resistance to environmental fungi
I was listening to a podcast recently that discussed how human average body temperature has been declining in recent years while heat tolerance of fungi has been rising (thanks to the climate). The result is that our bodies are less capable of preventing fungal infections through heat and fungi can be pretty deadly if unchecked.
Here is my hypothesis. Our body temperature is expensive and evolutionary not 'stable'. In the past, it would make sense that in environments with lower bacterial threats, the group would select for lower body temperature in order to preserve energy.
In order to do that, individuals with too low a body temperature would be removed from the group due to infections. This would create a balanced system between body temperature (energy expenditure) and bacterial immunity.
With the development of antibiotics, this changed. The previous bottom of the group is not culled anymore, removing the barrier of the imbalance. Therefore, the group is 'safely' selecting for lower body temperatures.
The theory is that in wealthy countries with good public health, there's less need to maintain a high body temperature to fend off threats. The show said that human body temperature "has been steadily declining for decades at a rate of, like, .05 degrees Fahrenheit per decade." (though not in less developed countries)...average is said to be more like 97.5 degrees.
Right; but they've been evolving rapidly the entire time. So they're still doing what they've always done. If the environment is changing, and people are changing, and that's causing us to be vulnerable to conditions we weren't previously vulnerable to, then that's a problem caused by people changing. These stories look for a villain, and seem to end up villainizing the fungus, which is good for sensationalism but not very useful for understanding what is actually happening.
Still early stages, but signs point to fungi becoming deadlier.