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Siedlecki I, Piątek M, Majchrowska M, Okrasińska A, Owczarek-Kościelniak M, Pawłowska J. Discovery of Formicomyces microglobosus gen. et sp. nov. strengthens the hypothesis of independent evolution of ant-associated fungi in Trichomeriaceae. Fungal Biol 2023; 127:1466-1474. [PMID: 38097320 DOI: 10.1016/j.funbio.2023.10.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2023] [Revised: 09/26/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023]
Abstract
Different groups of fungi have been reported to interact with ants. Recent studies have shown that fungi of the order Chaetothyriales are important components of ant-fungus networks, including members of the family Trichomeriaceae, which is particularly rich in fungi isolated from carton ants nests. One of the still understudied ant-related environments are ants' infrabuccal pockets and pellets, which often contain fungal matter. The aim of this work was to determine the systematic and phylogenetic position of two slow growing strains of Trichomeriaceae isolated from infrabuccal pellets of Formica polyctena ants. Molecular analyses based on maximum likelihood and bayesian inference, using sequences of two ribosomal DNA markers: ITS and LSU have shown that the isolated strains form a monophyletic clade within the family Trichomeriaceae, sister to a clade formed by representatives of the genus Trichomerium. Morphological analyses additionally justified distinctiveness of the isolated strains, which have different morphology of conidia and conidiophores than Trichomerium representatives. Therefore, our results show that the isolated strains represent a new species within a not yet described fungal genus. Due to the strains' isolation source and their close relatedness to a fungal strain isolated from a carton nest of Lasius fuliginosus, we propose a name Formicomyces microglobosus Siedlecki & Piątek for this fungus. While our discovery strengthens a hypothesis of the multiple, independent evolution of ant-associated fungi in the family Trichomeriaceae, the ecology of F. microglobosus still remains to be characterized.
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Affiliation(s)
- Igor Siedlecki
- University of Warsaw Botanic Garden, Aleje Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478, Warsaw, Poland; Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, ul. Żwirki i Wigury 101, 02-089, Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Marcin Piątek
- W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lubicz 46, 31-512, Kraków, Poland.
| | - Maria Majchrowska
- Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, ul. Żwirki i Wigury 101, 02-089, Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Alicja Okrasińska
- Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, ul. Żwirki i Wigury 101, 02-089, Warsaw, Poland.
| | | | - Julia Pawłowska
- Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, ul. Żwirki i Wigury 101, 02-089, Warsaw, Poland.
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Haelewaters D, Lubbers M, De Kesel A. The haustorium as a driving force for speciation in thallus-forming Laboulbeniomycetes. IMA Fungus 2022; 13:1. [PMID: 35101145 DOI: 10.1186/s43008-021-00087-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2021] [Accepted: 12/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Laboulbeniomycetes is a class of fungi that have obligate associations with arthropod hosts, either for dispersal (order Pyxidiophorales) or as biotrophic parasites (orders Herpomycetales and Laboulbeniales). Here, we focus on Herpomycetales and Laboulbeniales, which include fungi that form thalli, 3-dimensional, multicellular units of 1000 s of cells. Based on recently published data regarding patterns of speciation, we present the One-Host-One-Parasite model (1H1P) for haustorial thallus-forming Laboulbeniomycetes. We hypothesize that taxa with haustoria, rhizoidal structures that make contact with the host’s body cavity, have very strict host specificity. For taxa without haustoria, the microhabitat—as selected by the host—governs host shifting, presence or absence of the fungus, abundance, effective host range, and geographic distribution. We make suggestions for future research including fluorescent labeling of waxy lipids and mass spectrometry. These techniques have the potential to generate the data necessary to evaluate the here proposed 1H1P hypothesis for Herpomycetales and Laboulbeniales.
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Reboleira ASPS, Moritz L, Santamaria S, Enghoff H. Penetrative and non-penetrative interaction between Laboulbeniales fungi and their arthropod hosts. Sci Rep 2021; 11:22170. [PMID: 34773061 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-01729-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2021] [Accepted: 11/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Laboulbeniales are a highly specialized group of fungi living only on arthropods. They have high host specificity and spend their entire life-cycle on an arthropod host. Taxonomic characters of Laboulbeniales are based on the architecture of the cells of the parenchymal thallus, i.e. the visible part of the fungus outside the host. The extent of the fungus spreading inside the host-the haustorium-remains largely unknown. The attachment to the arthropod host is fundamental to understand the fungus-animal interaction, but how this truly occurs is unclear. Recent evidences question the strictly parasitic life-style of Laboulbeniales. We used micro-computed tomography (µCT) and 3D reconstructions to visualize, for the first time, the complete structure of Laboulbeniales species in situ on their hosts. We compared the haustoriate species, Arthrorhynchus nycteribiae on an insect host to the non-haustoriate species, Rickia gigas on a millipede host. Our results confirm that some Laboulbeniales species are ectoparasitic and have a haustorial structure that penetrates the host's cuticle, while others are ectobionts and are only firmly attached to the host's cuticle without penetrating it. The presence and the morphology of the haustorium are important traits for Laboulbeniales evolution, and key factors for future understanding of host dependence and specificity.
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Abstract
Arthropod-fungus interactions involving the Laboulbeniomycetes have been pondered for several hundred years. Early studies of Laboulbeniomycetes faced several uncertainties. Were they parasitic worms, red algal relatives, or fungi? If they were fungi, to which group did they belong? What was the nature of their interactions with their arthropod hosts? The historical misperceptions resulted from the extraordinary morphological features of these oddly constructed ectoparasitic fungi. More recently, molecular phylogenetic studies, in combination with a better understanding of life histories, have clearly placed these fungi among filamentous Ascomycota (subphylum Pezizomycotina). Species discovery and research on the classification of the group continue today as arthropods, and especially insects, are routinely collected and examined for the presence of Laboulbeniomycetes. Newly armed with molecular methods, mycologists are poisedto use Laboulbeniomycetes-insect associations as models for the study of a variety of basic evolutionary and ecological questions involving host-parasite relationships, modes of nutrient intake, population biology, host specificity, biological control, and invasion biology. Collaboration between mycologists and entomologists is essential to successfully advance knowledge of Laboulbeniomycetes and their intimate association with their hosts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danny Haelewaters
- Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA;
- Department of Zoology, University of South Bohemia, 37005 České Budejovice, Czech Republic
- Department of Biology, Research Group Mycology, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
| | - Meredith Blackwell
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA;
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA
| | - Donald H Pfister
- Farlow Reference Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA;
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Doorenweerd C, Sievert S, Rossi W, Rubinoff D. The paradoxical rarity of a fruit fly fungus attacking a broad range of hosts. Ecol Evol 2020; 10:8871-8879. [PMID: 32884663 PMCID: PMC7452774 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.6585] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2020] [Revised: 06/19/2020] [Accepted: 06/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding the factors that determine the realized and potential distribution of a species requires knowledge of abiotic, physiological, limitations as well as ecological interactions. Fungi of the order Laboulbeniales specialize on arthropods and are typically thought to be highly specialized on a single species or closely related group of species. Because infections are almost exclusively transmitted through direct contact between the hosts, the host ecology, to a large extent, determines the distribution and occurrence of the fungus. We examined ~20,000 fruit flies (Diptera: Dacinae) collected in Malaysia, Sulawesi, Australia, and the Solomon Islands between 2017 and 2019 for fungal infections and found 197 infected flies across eight different Bactrocera species. Morphology and 1,363 bps of small subunit (18S) DNA sequences both support that the infections are from a single polyphagous fungal species Stigmatomyces dacinus-a known ectoparasite of these fruit flies. This leads to the question: why is S. dacinus rare, when its hosts are widespread and abundant? In addition, the hosts are all Bactrocera, a genus with ~480 species, but 37 Bactrocera species found sympatric with the hosts were never infected. Host-selection does not appear to be phylogenetically correlated. These results suggest a hidden complexity in how different, but closely related, host species vary in their susceptibility, which somehow limits the abundance and dispersal capability of the fungus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Camiel Doorenweerd
- Department of Plant and Environmental Protection SciencesEntomology SectionCollege of Tropical Agriculture and Human ResourcesUniversity of HawaiiHonoluluHIUSA
| | - Sebastian Sievert
- Department of Plant and Environmental Protection SciencesEntomology SectionCollege of Tropical Agriculture and Human ResourcesUniversity of HawaiiHonoluluHIUSA
| | - Walter Rossi
- Department of MeSVAEnvironmental Sciences SectionUniversity of L'AquilaCoppitoItaly
| | - Daniel Rubinoff
- Department of Plant and Environmental Protection SciencesEntomology SectionCollege of Tropical Agriculture and Human ResourcesUniversity of HawaiiHonoluluHIUSA
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Santamaria S, Enghoff H, Reboleira AS. The first Laboulbeniales (Ascomycota, Laboulbeniomycetes) from an American millipede, discovered through social media. MycoKeys 2020; 67:45-53. [PMID: 32476982 PMCID: PMC7242483 DOI: 10.3897/mycokeys.67.51811] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2020] [Accepted: 04/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Laboulbeniales are highly specialized arthropod-associated fungi. The majority of the almost 2200 known species live on insects, although they also occur on other arthropod hosts. Recently, the number of Laboulbeniales associated with millipedes has increased considerably. Here we describe the first species of a Laboulbeniales fungus, Troglomyces twitteri sp. nov., from an American millipede. The new species was initially discovered on a photo of Cambala annulata (Say, 1821) from Ohio, USA, which had been shared on Twitter. A subsequent microscopic study of Cambala millipedes in museum collections in Denmark and France confirmed the discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sergi Santamaria
- Unitat de Botànica. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d’Ecologia. Facultat de Biociències. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 08193-Bellaterra (Barcelona), SpainUniversitat Autònoma de BarcelonaBellaterraSpain
| | - Henrik Enghoff
- Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100, Copenhagen, DenmarkUniversity of CopenhagenCopenhagenDenmark
| | - Ana Sofia Reboleira
- Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100, Copenhagen, DenmarkUniversity of CopenhagenCopenhagenDenmark
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Szentiványi T, Estók P, Pigeault R, Christe P, Glaizot O. Effects of fungal infection on the survival of parasitic bat flies. Parasit Vectors 2020; 13:23. [PMID: 31931866 PMCID: PMC6958713 DOI: 10.1186/s13071-020-3895-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2019] [Accepted: 01/07/2020] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Parasites are able to alter numerous aspects of their hosts’ life history, behaviour and distribution. One central question in parasitology is to determine the degree of impact that parasites have on their hosts. Laboulbeniales (Fungi: Ascomycota) are ectoparasitic fungi of arthropods. Even though these fungi are widely distributed, little is known about their ecology and their possible physiological effects on their hosts. We used a highly specific bat fly-fungi association to assess the effect of these fungal parasites on their dipteran hosts. Methods We collected bat flies (Diptera: Nycteribiidae) belonging to two species, Nycteribia schmidlii and Penicillidia conspicua from their bat host Miniopterus schreibersii (Chiroptera: Miniopteridae). We experimentally tested the effect of infection on the lifespan of bat flies. Results The prevalence of Laboulbeniales fungi was 17.9% in N. schmidlii and 64.8% in P. conspicua. Two fungi species were identified, Arthrorhynchus eucampsipodae and A. nycteribiae, both showing strict host specificity with N. schmidlii and P. conspicua, respectively. We found that fungal infection reduced by half the survival rate of P. conspicua regardless of sex, whereas N. schmidlii was not affected by the infection. Moreover, the intensity of infection showed negative correlation with the lifespan of P. conspicua. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first indication that fungal infection can alter bat fly survival and thus may play a significant role in the population dynamics of these bat ectoparasites.![]()
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamara Szentiványi
- Museum of Zoology, Palais de Rumine, Place de la Riponne 6, 1014, Lausanne, Switzerland. .,Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biophore, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Péter Estók
- Department of Zoology, Eszterházy Károly University, Eszterházy tér 1, 3300, Eger, Hungary
| | - Romain Pigeault
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biophore, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Philippe Christe
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biophore, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Olivier Glaizot
- Museum of Zoology, Palais de Rumine, Place de la Riponne 6, 1014, Lausanne, Switzerland.,Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biophore, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Jensen KM, Rodrigues L, Pape T, Garm A, Santamaria S, Reboleira ASPS. Hyperparasitism in caves: Bats, bat flies and ectoparasitic fungus interaction. J Invertebr Pathol 2019; 166:107206. [PMID: 31152770 DOI: 10.1016/j.jip.2019.107206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2019] [Revised: 05/25/2019] [Accepted: 05/28/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Bat flies (Diptera: Nycteribiinae) are highly specialized bloodsucking bat ectoparasites. Some of the ectoparasitic bat flies are themselves parasitized with an ectoparasitic fungus of the genus Arthrorhynchus (Laboulbeniales). Ascospores of the fungus attach to the cuticle of a bat fly and develop a haustorium that penetrates the host cuticle. This interaction defines the fungus as a hyperparasite. Both the fly and the fungus are obligate parasites and this peculiar case of hyperparasitism has remained largely unstudied. We studied the prevalence of Laboulbeniales, genus Arthrorhynchus, in natural populations of bat flies infesting the bat species Miniopterus schreibersii, Myotis bechsteinii, My. blythii, My. daubentonii, My. escalerai and My. myotis in Portuguese caves. Laboulbeniales were found infecting 10 of the 428 screened bat flies (2.3%) in natural populations, with fewer infections in winter. Images obtained with transmission electron microscopy show the fungal haustorium within the bat fly host tissue, from where it extracts nutrition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katrine M Jensen
- Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 2100 København Ø, Denmark
| | - Luísa Rodrigues
- Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, IP, Divisão de Conservação da Biodiversidade, Avenida da República, 16 a 16B, 1050-191 Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Thomas Pape
- Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 2100 København Ø, Denmark
| | - Anders Garm
- Biological Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100 København Ø, Denmark
| | - Sergi Santamaria
- Unitat de Botànica, Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193-Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona), Spain
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