The fact that they eat a lot – and often – may explain why most people and other mammals are protected from the majority of fungal pathogens, according to research from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The research, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, showed that the elevated body temperature of mammals – the familiar 98.6 °F or 37o °C in people – is too high for the vast majority of potential fungal invaders to survive. “Fungal strains undergo a major loss of ability to grow as we move to mammalian temperatures,” said Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., chair and professor of microbiology & immunology at Einstein.

However, we do know that those fungi that do infect humans can indeed survive at body temperature. Perhaps without endothermy, there would be a lot more of them.

The paper Vertebrate Endothermy Restricts Most Fungi as Potential Pathogens was published by the Journal of Infectious Diseases.