Scientists characterize one of "top most-wanted fungi"

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Scientists in the US have characterized and named one of the top "most-wanted fungi."

According to the journal, Mycologia, they named it Bifiguratus Adelaide in honor of Dr. Adelaida Chaverri Polini. She was a world-recognized tropical biologist and role model for women in Latin America in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Her major contributions were in the study and conservation of tropical montane forests and treeless alpine grasslands.

The report said the "mystery" fungus was collected in North Carolina and the scientists have found its home in the fungal tree of life.

Scientists estimate that there should be more than five million species of fungi. However they have only "identified and fully described 100,000 of them, and new DNA sequencing capabilities show us that many specimens in research collections are uncharacterized," Cheryl Kuske, a Los Alamos scientist on the project, said in a statement.

"Solving this particular mystery shows the potential value of using environmental sequencing to guide taxonomic and ecological discovery," said Kuske.

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and several other institutions have characterized a sample of “mystery” fungus. /Photo via Los Alamos National Laboratory

The fungal sample was interesting partly because it represents a major component of the observed fungal population in a pine forest, and it responded positively to elevated CO2 and nitrogen amendment treatments that mimic future environmental conditions – yet the sample's exact placement in the taxonomic order was unknown, according to the new report.

An editorial in the journal pointed out, that the sample represented one of the many "dark matter fungi" that populate unknown regions of the fungal tree of life. Scientists can detect their DNA in environmental samples, but their culture has been elusive.

Interestingly, the collected sample had been cultured successfully in the laboratory only when it was allowed to grow in the company of a species of bacteria, Methylobacterium, that antibiotics were unable to kill. Normally the fungal sample would have been cleared of such contaminants, but this one resisted their attempts, according to Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency