Darwin’s prescient letter regarding orchid mycorrhiza
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15517/y157kw10Palabras clave:
cápsula, germinación, hongo, semillas, sustrato, simbiosisResumen
El 26 de marzo de 1863, Charles Darwin escribió una carta a Joseph Dalton Hooker, describiendo sus intentos de germinar semillas de orquídeas. En esta carta, mencionaba su esperanza de observar plántulas de orquídeas y expresaba una “noción de que [las semillas]... ¡en su juventud temprana son parásitas de criptógamas!”. Si bien esta afirmación parece predecir el descubrimiento de Noël Bernard en 1899 de que las semillas de orquídea requieren colonización fúngica para germinar con éxito, existe cierta incertidumbre sobre el significado exacto de Darwin. En su época, el término “criptógamas” incluía comúnmente a los hongos, pero también abarcaba briofitas, pteridofitas y otras plantas no vasculares. Dado que Darwin mencionó Sphagnum en sus experimentos, es posible sugerir que estuviera considerando los musgos como hospederos potenciales en lugar de los hongos específicamente. Además, al tratarse de una carta personal a Joseph D. Hooker y no de una publicación formal, es probable que Darwin no fuera del todo preciso en su terminología. No obstante, considerando el interés más amplio de Darwin en las interacciones planta-hongo, es plausible que al menos haya considerado a los hongos como posibles socios simbióticos en la germinación de las orquídeas. Aunque el grado de su predicción sobre la relación orquídea-hongo puede ser debatible en cuanto a la terminología (¿se refería a los hongos al usar “criptógamas”?), su especulación fue notablemente intuitiva, cuestionando si las orquídeas necesitaban un socio biológico externo para la germinación de las semillas de orquídeas. La carta de Darwin demuestra su capacidad de visionaria, pero no resta mérito al logro monumental de Noël Bernard. Bernard hizo su descubrimiento de manera independiente, sin conocimiento de las observaciones de Darwin, basándose únicamente en su extraordinario talento científico. Su trabajo sigue siendo un pilar fundamental en la ciencia de las orquídeas. Lamentablemente, la carta premonitoria de Darwin parece no haber sido notada, apreciada o citada con la frecuencia que merece en la literatura sobre orquídeas hasta ahora, 162 años después de haber sido escrita.
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