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fungal root mantle formation

traitmech:000668 · CLASS · PROPOSED

A morphological phenotype in which a fungus forms an external sheath of aggregated hyphae, called a mantle, around a plant root.

Trait evidence (3)

  • DOI:10.1128/AEM.01991-15
    the fungus initially grows around the roots to form a mass of mycelium called the fungal mantle.

    Krause et al. (2015), Introduction, first paragraph, directly read publisher HTML. This contiguous clause describes the root-external mantle separately from the intraradical Hartig net. Main text and captions were read; actual figure images and supplementary contents were not inspected. The ald1-overexpressing T. vaccinum 1.16 is an engineered perturbation, not a natural canonical exemplar.

  • DOI:10.3389/fpls.2014.00229
    The fungus enwraps the root tip with a hyphal mantle [M] composed of several layers.

    Pena et al. (2014), Figure 1 caption, complete sentence, exact-matched in primary full-text XML and visually checked in the publisher PDF on p. 3. The actual composite figure contains a root photograph and section image with schematic infrared arrows; it is not an experimental image of radiation penetration. Main Results separately describe multilayered mantles in field-collected roots. Other figure images and Table S1 were not inspected; no numerical thickness, spectral function or additional taxon exemplar is inferred.

  • DOI:10.3390/microorganisms9122612
    Three weeks post-inoculation, fungal hyphae formed a thinner but denser mantle.

    Ruytinx et al. (2021), Results 3.3, complete sentence, exact-matched in primary full-text XML. Main text and actual Figure 2 on PDF p. 8 were inspected: https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_3375108_1/component/file_3400121/content The 21-day state follows the reported thick, dense 14-day mantle, not loss of the sheath. Methods 2.6 names WGA-Alexa 488 whereas the Figure 2 caption names WGA-oregon green; the discrepancy is retained, not resolved by inference. Other figure images and supplements were not inspected.

Provenance

Identifier source
TraitMech local identifier
Definition source
DOI:10.1128/AEM.01991-15

Parent traits (1)

kg-microbe context

No kg-microbe node embedding matched this record in the 2026-04-25 deepwalk.

Canonical examples (1)

Organisms cited as exemplars of this trait. Taxon ids are NCBITaxon and link out to the NCBI record.

  • Laccaria bicolor NCBITaxon:29883 DOI:10.3390/microorganisms9122612 Reference culture S238N, not haploid S238N-H82. Ruytinx (2021), Methods 2.1/2.3 and Results 3.3 with Figure 2B-C, documents a mantle around Populus tremula x alba 717-1B4 lateral roots in P20 sandwich coculture, including the 14- and 21-day states. The laboratory history at https://mycor.iam.inrae.fr/IAM/?page_id=4555 traces S238N to a 1976 Crater Lake, Oregon fruitbody collection under Tsuga mertensiana. NCBI EFetch confirms species 29883 and separate child strain 486041 S238N-H82; the genome strain is not substituted for the experimental culture. This is culture-qualified evidence, not independent reidentification or a claim for all strains.

Discussions and Knowledge Gaps (2)

Open questions attached to this trait. Seeded by just knowledge-gap-scan and curated; see the corpus-wide index.

Resolve a closer morphology parent without conflating root interfaces.

CURATION TODO OPEN fungal-root-mantle-scope-and-hierarchy · raised by codex · 2026-10-07

Not yet attached to a section of this record — a curator sets attaches_to (e.g. causal_graphs#some_edge) so the gap shows beside the mechanism it concerns.

Use active phenotype METPO:1000059 under quality METPO:1000188; METPO:1000198 mycorrhization is obsolete. The root qualifier excludes other senses of mantle or sheath. Hartig net formation traitmech:000667 is intercellular within roots; arbuscules 000664 and pelotons 000666 are intracellular, while BAS 000665 are branching groups on extraradical runner hyphae. Mycelial growth 000074 is explicitly bacterial and capsule 000063 is a polymer layer around a cell, not hyphae around a plant root. Colony outline, cell shape, rhizosphere association and ecological symbiosis outcomes are not this architecture. The existing Hartig-net mantle mention is an evidence boundary, not an ungrounded node, synonym or parent-gap TODO requiring repair. Bare mantle and fungal sheath name structures, not formation phenotypes; no exact synonyms, xrefs or SSSOM equivalences are asserted. No organism-level disjointness or fixed thickness, color, host range or nutrient-transfer outcome is implied.

Separate mantle morphogenesis from bulk expression and perturbation effects.

KNOWLEDGE GAP OPEN fungal-root-mantle-mechanism-and-readout · raised by codex · 2026-10-07

Not yet attached to a section of this record — a curator sets attaches_to (e.g. causal_graphs#some_edge) so the gap shows beside the mechanism it concerns.

A protein-resolved causal graph is deferred pending authority-verified proteins, sequence-to-culture links and inspection of the relevant perturbation images, not because mechanisms are absent. DOI:10.1128/AEM.01991-15 reports a thicker mantle in native ald1 overexpression; it does not establish an obligatory universal pathway. Its mte1 evidence is heterologous yeast growth rescue, not a native mantle-formation knockout. Keep increased thickness, first sheath formation, branching and plant responses separate. DOI:10.3390/microorganisms9122612 uses an EcM transcriptomic sample containing all fungal and mixed plant-fungal material within 0.5 cm of a root. Coexpression in that bulk sample is not mantle-specific localization or functional validation. The paper explicitly presents working models for future experimental tests.

Curation history

  1. · MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID · codex

    Added fungal root mantle formation with three DOI-backed snippets and a culture-qualified S238N example. Ignored-and-hidden novelty and main/worktree/pending-PR checks support 000668, v544 and block 1062100-1062199; pending 000665-000667 reservations remain occupied. Kept root-external sheath architecture separate from Hartig nets, ecological outcomes and unverified protein mechanisms.

Recorded curation sessions

  • · codex
    • CREATE — Add evidence-backed fungal root mantle formation

      Added traitmech:000668 as a PROPOSED morphology class with three DOI-backed, directly inspected snippets, a culture-qualified Laccaria bicolor S238N example, and two discussions distinguishing the root-external sheath from intraradical and intracellular interfaces. Minting checks included ignored and hidden files, main, all existing worktrees, complete pending PR curation artifacts and CommunityMech proposals. Reserved v544 and METPO block 1062100-1062199. The guarded writer passed 20 tests and its dry run before applying; a protein-resolved causal graph remains deferred pending source and authority checks, not assumed biologically absent.

    Read this curation session