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 tested the general relevance of hypotheses on the evolutionary assembly of animal body plans by characterizing 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 extinction, indicating that a complete record of fungal disparity would present a more homogeneous distribution of form. Fungal disparity expands episodically through time, punctuated by a sharp increase associated with the emergence of multicellular body plans. Simulations show these temporal trends to be non-random and at least partially shaped by hierarchical contingency. These trends are decoupled from changes in gene number, genome size and taxonomic diversity. Only differences in organismal complexity, characterized as the number of traits that constitute an organism, exhibit a meaningful relationship with fungal disparity. Both animals and fungi exhibit episodic increases in disparity through time, resulting in distributions of form made discontinuous by extinction. These congruences suggest a common mode of multicellular body plan evolution.

生物级多细胞性仅在动物、植物和真菌中实现。这三个王国都表现出表型不同的身体结构，但它们的进化只在动物身上被详细考虑过。在这里，我们通过表征真菌表型多样性（差异）的进化来测试动物身体计划进化组装假设的一般相关性。活真菌形态的分布由四种不同的形态类型定义：有鞭毛的；接合菌；囊轴承；和球杆轴承。形态类型之间的不连续性是灭绝的结果，表明真菌差异的完整记录将呈现更均匀的形态分布。随着时间的推移，真菌的差异不断扩大，并随着多细胞机体计划的出现而急剧增加。模拟显示这些时间趋势是非随机的，并且至少部分是由分层偶然事件决定的。这些趋势与基因数量、基因组大小和分类多样性的变化脱钩。只有生物体复杂性的差异（表征为构成生物体的性状数量）才与真菌差异表现出有意义的关系。随着时间的推移，动物和真菌都表现出差异的间歇性增加，导致形态分布因灭绝而变得不连续。这些一致性表明了多细胞身体规划进化的常见模式。