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Comment by romaaeterna | Hacker News Reader

"Rising global temperatures are driving fungi to adapt by becoming more thermotolerant..."

Your link only mentions Candida auris. I do not find it compelling to blame this on recent global warming for two reasons: 1) Regional and seasonal temperature variation is much greater than global variation and therefore the first place to look for temperature-specific adaptation, 2) The presence of an adaptation to the human body temperature in a human pathogen is not exactly remarkable or new.

The thing about Candida auris is not that it is heat-resistant, but that it is drug resistant. IMO, it's worth looking at the evidence that the appearance of Candida auris is related to the use of agricultural antifungals in East Asian agricultural production.

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I too think that we don't yet have convincing evidence that recent changes in global temperature have driven thermal tolerance. However, there are some interesting aspect of C. auris that are worth pointing out:

• C. auris does have unusual thermotolerance -- it grows up to 42C which is unusual compared to other Candida species.

• C. auris does not appear to be a typical commensal of mammals, or other high body temp animals, and hence it's thermal tolerance is likely not due to selection for this aspect of the host niche

Some more info on C. auris and hypotheses about origins here:

• Sharma C, Kadosh D. Perspective on the origin, resistance, and spread of the emerging human fungal pathogen Candida auris. PLoS Pathog. 2023 Mar 23;19(3):e1011190. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011190. PMID: 36952448; PMCID: PMC10035752.

But I agree

> appearance of Candida auris is related to the use of agricultural antifungals in East Asian agricultural production

Can you elaborate on share documents on this? I’m wondering why east asia is different in anti fungal usage.

"Can you elaborate on share documents on this?"

https://archive.is/uTAaW

"I’m wondering why east asia is different in anti fungal usage."

It is a logical error to assume that it has to be substantially different. East Asia is simply the region that Candida auris originates from (ie., evolved in). It was first noticed in Tokyo and South Korea, and eventually India a few years later.

EDIT:

Actually, looks like there's some evidence that multiple evolutionarily-separate unrelated strains attained drug resistance one after another. Presumably the same antifungal agricultural product would have been in widespread use if this is the cause. If you look at the PLOS article linked in the NYT article in my link, they give an example of this for Aspergillus fumigatus strains.

[1] https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...

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