[Pollinator] A remarkable spore dispersal mechanism

[De Angelis, Patricia]

Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist, US Fish & Wildlife Service-Division of Scientific Authority
Chair, Plant Conservation Alliance-Medicinal Plant Working Group
703-358-1708 x 1753


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: De Angelis, Patricia <patricia_deangelis at fws.gov>
Date: Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 9:05 AM
Subject: A remarkable spore dispersal mechanism
To: native-plants <native-plants at lists.plantconservation.org>


News article followed by the citation to the article in the journal,
"Current Biology."
GLOWING MUSHROOM ATTRACTS INSECTS

By Emily Conover

These glow-in-the-dark mushrooms might look like something from a 1960s
black-light poster, but the luminous fungus Neonothopanus gardneri grows at
the base of palm trees in Brazilian forests. The shrooms put on their light
show to attract insects that will spread their spores, according to a study
published online today in Current Biology. To test if that was the reason
for the glow, the scientists placed plastic mushroom decoys at the base of
trees, some lit with green LEDs to mimic the bioluminescence of the real
thing. Over 5 nights, they counted the insect visitors to each imitation
mushroom and found that those without LED light had far fewer: They
collected a total of 12 insects from the dark mushrooms, compared with 42
from the glowing ones. In lab work, the researchers also showed that the
mushrooms follow a daily rhythm, lighting up only when it's
dark—presumably, an energy-conserving measure and another indication that
their glow serves a purpose.

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/03/glowing-mushroom-attracts-insects?utm_campaign=email-news-weekly&utm_src=email

CIRCADIAN CONTROL SHEDS LIGHT ON FUNGAL BIOLUMENSCENCE

Anderson et al 2015

Summary: Bioluminescence, the creation and emission of light by organisms,
affords insight into the lives of organisms doing it. Luminous living
things are widespread and access diverse mechanisms to generate and control
luminescence [ 1–5 ]. Among the least studied bioluminescent organisms are
phylogenetically rare fungi—only 71 species, all within the ∼9,000 fungi of
the temperate and tropical Agaricales order—are reported from among
∼100,000 described fungal species [ 6, 7 ]. All require oxygen [ 8 ] and
energy (NADH or NADPH) for bioluminescence and are reported to emit green
light (λmax 530 nm) continuously, implying a metabolic function for
bioluminescence, perhaps as a byproduct of oxidative metabolism in lignin
degradation. Here, however, we report that bioluminescence from the
mycelium of Neonothopanus gardneri is controlled by a
temperature-compensated circadian clock, the result of cycles in
content/activity of the luciferase, reductase, and luciferin that comprise
the luminescent system. Because regulation implies an adaptive function for
bioluminescence, a controversial question for more than two millennia [
8–15 ], we examined interactions between luminescent fungi and insects [ 16
]. Prosthetic acrylic resin “mushrooms,” internally illuminated by a green
LED emitting light similar to the bioluminescence, attract staphilinid rove
beetles (coleopterans), as well as hemipterans (true bugs), dipterans
(flies), and hymenopterans (wasps and ants), at numbers far greater than
dark control traps. Thus, circadian control may optimize energy use for
when bioluminescence is most visible, attracting insects that can in turn
help in spore dispersal, thereby benefitting fungi growing under the forest
canopy, where wind flow is greatly reduced.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(15)00160-8
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