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saying 'the mycorrhiza mutated' just sounds a bit lame, so ...
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Jamie and Prof. Hasegawa searched in the Wilderness Preserves for minimal mutated mycorrhiza to prove that the problem was man-made. On their way into the wilderness Jamie got infected by the fungus. It liquefied her leg tissue. The CDC believed that it was caused by a virus because these symptoms reminded them of Ebola. Hasegawa caught later a tissue samples of Jamie and the fungus in the quarantine zone. He realized that it would need other and better security measures for the Daodan Chryalis to [[#Contamination_of_the_ecosystem|not endanger the environment]]. | Jamie and Prof. Hasegawa searched in the Wilderness Preserves for minimal mutated mycorrhiza to prove that the problem was man-made. On their way into the wilderness Jamie got infected by the fungus. It liquefied her leg tissue. The CDC believed that it was caused by a virus because these symptoms reminded them of Ebola. Hasegawa caught later a tissue samples of Jamie and the fungus in the quarantine zone. He realized that it would need other and better security measures for the Daodan Chryalis to [[#Contamination_of_the_ecosystem|not endanger the environment]]. | ||
====Anonymous diary entry==== | |||
We had fail-safe measures in both mycorrhiza organisms. | |||
On one hand they require fertilizers with [http://phys.org/news/2015-06-scientists-molecular-key-potential-gmos.html artificial amino acids.] When the plant and the fungi can't consume more of these components they stop growing. Eventually too low concentration trigger cell death whereby all the genetic information in dissolved as last action, only leaving the hard shells for radioactive material behind. | |||
Also each mycorrhiza partner produces components for the other. They can only grow with the other partner around. | |||
Since the two depend on each other, new emerging symbioses shouldn’t have effects on the mycorrhiza in aspects of biocontainment. | |||
None of the crucial partner could have been replaced by another symbiont while keeping the dangerous decontamination process intact. | |||
However, the plant can have multiple symbionts. While our engineered radiotrophic fungi was crucial, other fungi and bacteria supported the plant in common task like nitrogen fixation. | |||
What led to the catastrophe was the horizontal gene transfer with secondary symbionts that occur in nature. | |||
Either the fungi exchanged directly genetic material or bacteria acted as a carrier between the primary, artificially created fungi and the secondary, natural occurring fungi. | |||
In the new fugal hosts the decontamination codes had enough time to experience mutations which replaced the artificial amino acids. The mutation rate was quite high due to the radioactive test sides. | |||
The most dangerous mutants appeared where fertilizer were no longer dropped. The evolutionary pressure favored fungal species that were able to fully recycle all the few surrounding nutrients and snatching other organisms for more transfers of potentially useful genetic material. | |||
Eventually the new fungi escaped. Some organisms that survive an attack gained defense mechanisms (making them on par with the original mutant) and abilities to easily exchange genes via HGT. If the WCG would't have employed bio-decontamination teams our city flora and crop plants would have already overrun by this green hell. | |||