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Science 10 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5766, pp. 1386 - 1387
DOI: 10.1126/science.1124183
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Perspectives

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE:
Fungi, Weathering, and the Emergence of Animals

Louis A. Derry

A billion years separated the advent of one-celled eukaryotes from that of multicellular animals. This rise of the animals may have been triggered by increases in atmospheric oxygen resulting from mineral weathering accelerated by ancient soil biota.

The author is in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. E-mail: lad9{at}cornell.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Plant-driven fungal weathering: Early stages of mineral alteration at the nanometer scale.
S. Bonneville, M. M. Smits, A. Brown, J. Harrington, J. R. Leake, R. Brydson, and L. G. Benning (2009)
Geology 37, 615-618
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