Newly discovered fungus castrates male spruce flowers
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Loading... - Jordan Thompson
- 28 Mar 2023
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A rare discovery during a midday walk: On a spruce tree, an employee of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL discovered not only a new species of fungus, but also a genus previously unknown to science. The parasite feeds on the spruce pollen and destroys the male flowers in the process. It is unclear whether it is an introduced species.
WSL fungi expert Andrin Gross made an extraordinary find in 2018, practically on the doorstep of his office: he saw small, gray-beige cupules on the male flowers of a Himalayan spruce in the WSL gardens. The WSL fungi team conducted an extensive search in worldwide fungal archives and genetic databases, which did not uncover any similar fungi.
This is not only a new species of fungus, but also a new genus. The researchers christened it Microstrobilinia castrans and now presented it to the scientific community in the journal Mycological Progress. "It is rare to discover a new fungal genus in Switzerland or even in Europe," says WSL researcher Ludwig Beenken, who specializes in small fungi and is first author of the publication.
The species name castrans indicates the unusual way of life of the fungus: it decomposes the tissue of the male flowers and thus gets hold of the nutritious pollen. It does not occur on other parts of the trees. After the initial find on the Himalayan spruce, the WSL fungi experts launched a search, with volunteers also helping. "I even searched the spruces along the way during my hiking holidays," says Beenken, who works at the WSL advisory service Forest Conservation Switzerland.
The search operation has now detected the fungus at around 130 sites, both on planted Himalayan spruce (Picea smithiana) and Serbian spruce (Picea omorika) in settlement areas and on native spruce (Picea abies) in forest pastures and mountain forests in the Jura, the Alps and the Black Forest. It has not been found on other spruce species so far. Read More…
