Despite the importance of mammal‐fungal interactions, tools to estimate the mammal‐assisted dispersal distances of fungi are lacking. Many mammals actively consume fungal fruiting bodies, the spores of which remain viable after passage through their digestive tract. Many of these fungi form symbiotic relationships with trees and provide an array of other key ecosystem functions. We present a flexible, general model to predict the distance a mycophagous mammal would disperse fungal spores. We modeled the probability of spore dispersal by combining animal movement data from GPS telemetry with data on spore gut‐retention time. We test this model using an exemplar generalist mycophagist, the swamp wallaby (Wallabia bicolor). We show that swamp wallabies disperse fungal spores hundreds of meters—and occasionally up to 1,265 m—from the point of consumption, distances that are ecologically significant for many mycorrhizal fungi. In addition to highlighting the ecological importance of swamp wallabies as dispersers of mycorrhizal fungi in eastern Australia, our simple modeling approach provides a novel and effective way of empirically describing spore dispersal by a mycophagous animal. This approach is applicable to the study of other animal‐fungi interactions in other ecosystems.

中文翻译：

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用食菌性沼泽袋鼠（Wallabia bicolor）模拟菌根真菌的传播

尽管哺乳动物与真菌之间的相互作用非常重要，但仍缺乏用于估计哺乳动物辅助真菌散布距离的工具。许多哺乳动物活跃地食用真菌子实体，这些子实体的孢子经过其消化道后仍能存活。这些真菌中有许多与树木形成共生关系，并提供一系列其他关键的生态系统功能。我们提出了一个灵活的通用模型，以预测食虫性哺乳动物散布真菌孢子的距离。我们通过将GPS遥测中的动物运动数据与孢子肠保留时间的数据结合起来，对孢子散布的概率进行了建模。我们使用示例性的全能噬菌师沼泽沼泽鼠（Wallabia bicolor）。我们显示，沼泽小袋鼠从食用点散布数百米（有时可达1,265 m）的真菌孢子，该距离对于许多菌根真菌而言具有重要的生态意义。除了强调沼泽小袋鼠作为菌根真菌在澳大利亚东部的传播者的生态重要性外，我们的简单建模方法还提供了一种新颖而有效的方法，以经验方式描述食真菌性动物的孢子传播。该方法适用于其他生态系统中其他动物-真菌相互作用的研究。