Truffles may seem like a lavish snack, but to swamp wallabies they represent a much more run-of-the-mill feed.
Research conducted by a team from Edith Cowan University published this month highlights the critical role played by truffles – and the wallabies that disperse them – in supporting forest ecosystems and tree health.
There are thousands of truffle species found across Australia, according to lead researcher Dr Melissa Danks, each of which plays a crucial role in helping trees and woody plants perform functions that are essential for their survival.
“Truffles live in a mutually beneficial relationship with these plants, helping them to uptake water and nutrients, and for defence against disease,” said Dr Danks.
“Unlike mushrooms where spores are dispersed through wind and water, truffles are found underground with the spores inside an enclosed ball — they need to be eaten by an animal to move their spores.”
The role of the swamp wallaby in dispersing truffles came under scrutiny by Dr Danks and her team, in part due to the decline in the number of smaller mammals with specialist diets, like potoroos.
“Wallabies are browsing animals that will munch on ferns and leaves, as well as a wide array of mushrooms and truffles,” she said. “We were interested in finding out whether swamp wallabies have become increasingly important in truffle dispersal, with the loss of these other mammals.”
To test the theory, wallabies were fed truffles and tracked to understand the way these fungi are dispersed across the landscape. After ingestion, researchers waited to see how long it took before the spores appeared in the animals’ scat. Most appeared within 51 hours, although sometimes the process took up to three days.
Researchers fitted the wallabies with GPS trackers to see how they moved through the landscape during that time. Moving hundreds of metres — and sometimes more than a kilometre — the wallabies were found to be highly effective at dispersing the truffle spores.
This is positive news for forest ecosystems, and forest and wood products industries more generally, as our understanding of the relationship between fungi and tree health continues to expand rapidly.
“Many of our bushland plants have a partnership with truffles for survival, and so it is really critical to understand the role of animals in dispersing these truffle spores,” Dr Danks said.
“Our research on swamp wallabies has demonstrated a simple method to predict how far an animal disperses fungal spores in a variety of landscapes.”
Source: Phys.org
