Data from: Evolution of fungal phenotypic disparity

Organismal grade multicellularity has been achieved only in animals,
plants, and fungi. All three kingdoms manifest phenotypically disparate
body plans, but their evolution has only been considered in detail for
animals. Here we seek to test the general relevance of hypotheses on the
evolution of animal body plans by characterising the evolution of fungal
phenotypic variety (disparity). The distribution of living fungal form is
defined by four distinct morphotypes: flagellated, zygomycetous,
sac-bearing, and club-bearing. The discontinuity between morphotypes is a
consequence of the extinction of phylogenetic intermediates, indicating
that a complete record of fungal disparity would present a much more
homogeneous distribution of form. Fungal phenotypic variety gradually
expands through time for the most part but sharply increases with the
emergence of multicellular body plans. Simulations show these temporal
trends to be decidedly non-random, and at least partially shaped by
hierarchical contingency. Fungal phenotypic distance is decoupled from
changes in gene number, genome size, and taxonomic diversity. Only
differences in organismal complexity, the number of traits that constitute
an organism, at the cellular and multicellular levels present a meaningful
relationship with fungal disparity. Both animals and fungi exhibit a
gradual increase in disparity through time, resulting in distributions of
form made discontinuous by the extinction of phylogenetic intermediates.
These congruences hint at a common mode of multicellular body plan
evolution.