1.
HMS Conqueror (S48)
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HMS Conqueror was a Churchill-class nuclear-powered fleet submarine that served in the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1990. She was built by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead and she is the only nuclear-powered submarine known to have engaged an enemy ship with torpedoes, sinking the cruiser General Belgrano with two Mark 8 torpedoes during the 1982 Falklands War. Conqueror was the submarine of her class, following on from the earlier Churchill. The submarines were designed to face the Soviet threat at sea by attacking other ships and submarines, Conqueror was ordered on 9 August 1966 and was laid down at Cammel Lairds Birkenhead shipyard on 5 December 1967. She was launched on 28 August 1969, Conqueror was finally commissioned on 9 November 1971. Conqueror arrived in the zone around the Falkland Islands 21 days later and was ordered to scan the area for Argentine shipping. On 30 April, she spotted the Argentine light cruiser General Belgrano sailing southwest of the Falklands, after some debate, permission to engage General Belgrano was sent to the submarine from the Royal Navys fleet command centre in Northwood in the United Kingdom. In the intervening period, General Belgrano had retired from its position and turned west. This later caused controversy, although General Belgranos captain and the Argentine government later acknowledged that the attack was a legitimate act of war. On 2 May Conqueror became the first nuclear-powered submarine to fire in anger, twenty minutes later, the ship was sinking rapidly and was abandoned by her crew. General Belgrano was unable to issue a Mayday signal because of electrical failure, a total of 323 men were killed. Adding to the confusion, the crew of the ARA Bouchard felt an impact that was possibly the third torpedo striking at the end of its run, the two ships continued on their course westward and began dropping depth charges. By the time the ships realised that something had happened to General Belgrano, it was already dark, conquerors war did not end there. The crew of the submarine had to face Argentine Air Force attempts to locate her in the days after the attack, which had shocked the Argentine people and ruling dictatorship. Conqueror did not fire again in anger throughout the war, after the war, Conqueror returned to Faslane, flying a Jolly Roger adorned with torpedoes, a customary act of Royal Navy submarines after a kill. When asked about the incident later, Commander Wreford-Brown responded, The Royal Navy spent thirteen years preparing me for such an occasion and it would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up. Later in 1982, Conqueror completed a raid to acquire a Soviet sonar array from its Polish-flagged tow-boat, the operation, a joint mission between British and American forces, was conducted on the boundary of Soviet territorial waters. Conqueror used cutters affixed to her bow to shear through the three-inch thick wire before silently returning to her base on the Clyde, on 2 July 1988 Conqueror was involved in a collision with the Army Sail Training Association yacht Dalriada south of the Mull of Kintyre
2.
Conk
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The conk was a hairstyle popular among African-American men from the 1920s to the 1960s. This hairstyle called for a man with naturally kinky hair to have it chemically straightened using a relaxer, conks were often styled as large pompadours although other men chose to simply slick their straightened hair back, allowing it to lie flat on their heads. Also, the style required repeated application of relaxers, as new hair grew in, the gatefold of the 1968 album Electric Mud shows blues legend Muddy Waters having his hair conked. The style fell out of popularity when the Black Power movement of the 1960s took hold, and the Afro became a popular symbol of African pride. The conk is all but extinct as a hairstyle among African-American men today, although more mildly relaxed hairstyles such as the Jheri curl, in the African American Community of the early 20th century, the conk hairstyle served as a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood for males. Because of the involved in the process, and the possibility of chemical burns and permanent scarring
3.
Ganoderma
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Ganoderma is a genus of polypore mushrooms that grow on wood, and include about 80 species, many from tropical regions. Because of their use in traditional Asian medicines, and their potential in bioremediation. Ganoderma can be differentiated from other polypores because they have a double-walled basidiospore and they are popularly referred to as shelf mushrooms or bracket fungi. The name Ganoderma is derived from the Greek ganos/γανος brightness, sheen, hence shining, Ganoderma are characterized by basidiocarps that are large, perennial, woody brackets also called conks. They are lignicolous and leathery either with or without a stem, the fruit bodies typically grow in a fan-like or hoof-like form on the trunks of living or dead trees. They have double-walled, truncate spores with yellow to brown ornamented inner layers, the genus was named by Karsten in 1881. Until recently, the genus was divided two sections – Section Ganoderma with a shiny cap surface and Elfvingia, with a dull cap surface. Phylogenetic analysis using DNA sequence information derived from mitochondrial SSU rDNA, have helped to clarify our understanding of the relationships amongst Ganoderma species, historically, however, Tomophagus has generally been regarded as a synonym for Ganoderma. Nearly a century later, phylogenetic analyses vindicated Murrills original placement, Ganoderma are wood-decaying fungi with a cosmopolitan distribution. They can grow on coniferous and hardwood species. They are white-rot fungi with enzymes that allow them to break down wood components such as lignin, there has been significant research interest in trying to harness the power of these wood-degrading enzymes for industrial applications such as biopulping or bioremediation. Several species of Ganoderma contain many compounds, such as triterpenoids. Collectively, the Ganoderma species are being investigated for a variety of therapeutic benefits. An infestation of this species was the factor in the loss of the Anne Frank Tree. Ganoderma lucidum - Also known as Reishi or Lingzhi, a very valuable medicine in Asian herbal medicine, known as the King of Herbs. Ganoderma multipileum - A genomic study in 2009 discovered that populations of G. lucidum in Tropical Asia are actually a separate species, Ganoderma philippii - A plant pathogen. Ganoderma pseudoferreum - Responsible for the root rot of cacao, coffee, rubber, Ganoderma tsugae - A polypore which grows on conifers, especially hemlock, thus the common name, Hemlock varnish shelf. Similar in appearance to Ganoderma lucidum, which grows on hardwoods
4.
Polypore
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Polypores are a group of fungi that form fruiting bodies with pores or tubes on the underside. They are a group of basidiomycetes like gilled mushrooms and hydnoid fungi. Polypores are also called bracket fungi, and their woody fruiting bodies are called conks, most polypores inhabit tree trunks or branches consuming the wood, but some soil-inhabiting species form mycorrhiza with trees. Polypores and their relatives corticioid fungi are the most important agents of wood decay, thus, they play a very significant role in nutrient cycling and carbon dioxide production of forest ecosystems. Over one thousand species have been described to science, but a large part of the diversity is still unknown even in relatively well-studied temperate areas. Polypores are much more diverse in old forests with abundant dead wood than in younger managed forests or plantations. Consequently, a number of species have declined drastically and are under threat of extinction due to logging, polypores are used in traditional medicine, and they are actively studied for their medicinal value and various industrial applications. Several polypore species are pathogens of plantation trees and are major causes of timber spoilage. Bracket fungi, or shelf fungi, are among the groups of fungi that comprise the division Basidiomycota. Characteristically, they produce shelf- or bracket-shaped or occasionally circular fruiting bodies called conks that lie in a close grouping of separate or interconnected horizontal rows. Brackets can range from only a row of a few caps. They are mainly found on trees and coarse woody debris, some form annual fruiting bodies while others are perennial and grow larger year after year. Bracket fungi are typically tough and sturdy and produce their spores, called basidiospores, because bracket fungi are defined by their growth form rather than phylogeny, the group contains members of multiple clades. Although the term classically was reserved for polypores, molecular studies have revealed some odd relationships, the beefsteak fungus, a well-known bracket fungus, is actually a member of the agarics. Other examples of bracket fungi include the sulphur shelf, birch bracket, dryads saddle, artists conk, the name polypores is often used for a group that includes many of the hard or leathery fungi, which often lack a stem, growing straight out of wood. Bracket fungi often grow in semi-circular shapes, looking like trees or wood and they can be parasitic, saprotrophic, or both. One of the common genera, Ganoderma, can grow large thick shelves that may contribute to the death of the tree. Their hardiness means they are resilient and can live for quite a long time
5.
Basidiomycota
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Basidiomycota is one of two large divisions that, together with the Ascomycota, constitute the subkingdom Dikarya within the kingdom Fungi. Basidiomycota are filamentous fungi composed of hyphae and reproduce sexually via the formation of specialized club-shaped end cells called basidia that normally bear external meiospores and these specialized spores are called basidiospores. However, some Basidiomycota reproduce asexually in addition or exclusively, the most recent classification adopted by a coalition of 67 mycologists recognizes three subphyla and two other class level taxa outside of these, among the Basidiomycota. As now classified, the join and also cut across various obsolete taxonomic groups previously commonly used to describe Basidiomycota. According to a 2008 estimate, Basidiomycota comprise three subphyla 16 classes,52 orders,177 families,1,589 genera, and 31,515 species, the terms basidiomycetes and ascomycetes are frequently used loosely to refer to Basidiomycota and Ascomycota. They are often abbreviated to basidios and ascos as mycological slang, the Agaricomycotina include what had previously been called the Hymenomycetes, the Gasteromycetes, as well as most of the jelly fungi. The three classes in the Agaricomycotina are the Agaricomycetes, the Dacrymycetes, and the Tremellomycetes, the class Wallemiomycetes is not yet placed in a subdivision, but recent genomic evidence suggests that it is a sister group of Agaricomycotina. The Ustilaginomycotina are most of the former smut fungi and the Exobasidiales, the classes of the Ustilaginomycotina are the Exobasidiomycetes, the Entorrhizomycetes, and the Ustilaginomycetes. Typically haploid Basidiomycota mycelia fuse via plasmogamy and then the compatible nuclei migrate into each others mycelia, karyogamy is delayed, so that the compatible nuclei remain in pairs, called a dikaryon. The hyphae are said to be dikaryotic. Conversely, the mycelia are called monokaryons. Often, the mycelium is more vigorous than the individual monokaryotic mycelia. The dikaryons can be long-lived, lasting years, decades, or centuries, the monokaryons are neither male nor female. They have either a bipolar or a mating system. However, there are variations of these genes in the population. It is as if there were multiple sexes, meiosis follows shortly with the production of 4 haploid nuclei that migrate into 4 external, usually apical basidiospores. Typically the basidiospores are ballistic, hence they are also called ballistospores. In most species, the basidiospores disperse and each can start a new haploid mycelium, basidia are microscopic but they are often produced on or in multicelled large fructifications called basidiocarps or basidiomes, or fruitbodies), variously called mushrooms, puffballs, etc
6.
Agaric
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Agaric can also refer to a basidiomycete species characterized by an agaric-type fruiting body. Archaically agaric meant tree-fungus, however, that changed with the Linnaean interpretation in 1753 when Linnaeus used the generic name Agaricus for gilled mushrooms, most species of agarics are within orders of and describe the members of the order Agaricales in the subphylum Agaricomycotina. The exceptions, where agarics have evolved independently, feature largely in the orders Russulales, Boletales, Hymenochaetales, old systems of classification place all agarics in the Agaricales and some sources use agarics as the colloquial collective noun for the Agaricales. Contemporary sources now tend to use the term euagarics to refer to all members of the Agaricales. Agaric is also used as a common name for members of the genus Agaricus, as well as for members of other genera, for example. Gilled Mushrooms at AmericanMushrooms. com Evolution & Morphology in the Homobasidiomycetes by Gary Lincoff & Michael Wood, MykoWeb. com
7.
Hydnoid fungi
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The hydnoid fungi are a group of fungi in the Basidiomycota with basidiocarps producing spores on pendant, tooth-like or spine-like projections. They are colloquially called tooth fungi, originally such fungi were referred to the genus Hydnum, but it is now known that not all hydnoid species are closely related. Hydnum was one of the genera created by Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum of 1753. It contained all species of fungi with fruit bodies bearing pendant, subsequent authors described around 900 species in the genus. With increasing use of the microscope, it clear that not all tooth fungi were closely related. The Dutch mycologist Rudolph Arnold Maas Geesteranus paid particular attention to the group, the original genus Hydnum is still current, but is now restricted to the type species, Hydnum repandum, and its relatives in the order Cantharellales. The fruit bodies of fungi are diverse, but all produce their spores on the surface of pendant. Some terrestrial species producing fruit bodies with a pileus and stipe are known as the stipitate hydnoid fungi and are often studied as a group because of their ecological similarity. The species concerned are now referred to the genera Bankera, Hydnellum, Phellodon, all are ectomycorrhizal, belong in the Thelephorales, and are considered to be indicator species of old, species-rich forests. In Europe, at least, many are of conservation concern, Species of Hydnum and the related Sistotrema confluens are also mycorrhizal, but have different ecological requirements. Other stipitate hydnoid fungi are wood decomposing, such as species of Beenakia, Climacodon. The largest group of fungi formerly placed in the genus Hydnum are wood-rotting species, forming patch-like fruit bodies on dead attached branches, logs, stumps, Species with small teeth are sometimes described as odontioid. Species that form fruiting bodies are also considered part of the corticioid fungi. Genera that have hydnoid or odontioid representatives include Hydnochaete, Hyphodontia and Odonticium, Dentipellis, Dentocorticium, Mycoacia, Radulodon, Steccherinum, other hydnoid fungi include a group of conspicuous, wood-rotting species with long spines belonging to the genus Hericium, often referred to as tooth fungi. The ear-pick fungus and other species of Auriscalpium are hydnoid, as is the odd jelly fungus Pseudohydnum gelatinosum, the distinction between polypores and hydnoid fungi is not always clear—irregular, split pores can also be interpreted as teeth. Consequently, some species are considered hydnoid or poroid depending on the context, scottish stipitate hydnoid brochure Tooth Fungi at AmericanMushrooms. com Pinewood tooth fungi species profile
8.
Mycorrhiza
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A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association between a fungus and the roots of a vascular host plant. The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungi in the plants rhizosphere, mycorrhizae play important roles in soil biology and soil chemistry. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plants root tissues, either intracellularly as in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, the association is generally mutualistic, but in particular species or in particular circumstances, mycorrhizae may be variously pathogenic in the host plants. Mycorrhizal fungi form a relationship with the roots of most plant species. In such a relationship, both the plants themselves and those parts of the roots that host the fungi, are said to be mycorrhizal, the Orchidaceae are notorious as a family in which the absence of the correct mycorrhizae is fatal even to germinating seeds. Recent research into plants in boreal forests has indicated that mycorrhizal fungi. This relationship was noted when mycorrhizal fungi were found to be hoarding nitrogen from plant roots in times of nitrogen scarcity. Researchers argue that some mycorrhizae distribute nutrients based upon the environment with surrounding plants, the mycorrhizal mutualistic association provides the fungus with relatively constant and direct access to carbohydrates, such as glucose and sucrose. The carbohydrates are translocated from their source to root tissue and on to the fungal partners. The effect is thus to improve the plants mineral absorption capabilities, unaided plant roots may be unable to take up macronutrients that are chemically or physically immobilised, examples include phosphate ions and micronutrients such as iron. One form of such immobilization occurs in soil with clay content. The mycelium of the fungus can, however, access many such nutrient sources. Thus many plants are able to obtain phosphate, without using soil as a source, Suillus tomentosus, a basidiomycete fungus, produces specialized structures known as tuberculate ectomycorrhizae with its plant host lodgepole pine. These structures have shown to host nitrogen fixing bacteria which contribute a significant amount of nitrogen. The mechanisms by which mycorrhizae increase absorption include some that are physical, chemically, the cell membrane chemistry of fungi differs from that of plants. For example, they may secrete organic acid that dissolve or chelate many ions, mycorrhizae are especially beneficial for the plant partner in nutrient-poor soils. Mycorrhizal plants are more resistant to diseases, such as those caused by microbial soil-borne pathogens. AMF was also correlated with soil biological fertility variables such as soil fungi and soil bacteria
9.
Corticioid fungi
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The corticioid fungi are a group of fungi in the Basidiomycota typically having effused, smooth basidiocarps that are formed on the undersides of dead tree trunks or branches. They are sometimes colloquially called crust fungi or patch fungi, originally such fungi were referred to the genus Corticium and subsequently to the family Corticiaceae, but it is now known that corticioid species are not closely related. The fact that they look similar is an example of adaptive evolution, since they are often studied as a group, it is convenient to retain the informal name of corticioid fungi and this term is frequently used in research papers and other texts. The genus Corticium was established by Persoon in 1794 for fungi having smooth, Corticium roseum Pers. was later selected as the type species. Subsequent authors described over 1000 species in the genus continued to be used in its wide sense up until the 1950s. Though a number of genera had been recognized as distinct from Corticium from the nineteenth century onwards. John Eriksson reviewed the corticioid fungi in a series of publications starting in 1950 that modern concepts were formed, the eight-volume work that he initiated, Corticiaceae of North Europe, effectively established the current circumscription of the corticioid fungi. It was not until the advent of DNA sequencing that the diversity of these fungi was realized. The genus Corticium is still retained, but is now restricted to a few closely related to the type. The Corticiaceae is now restricted to a few genera close to Corticium. Crust-like species are found in no less than 18 of the 24 currently recognized orders of higher basidiomycetes, corticioid fungi are rather loosely defined, but most have effused fruit bodies, the spore bearing surface typically being smooth to granular or spiny. Some species may form fruit bodies that are partly bracket- or shelf-like with a smooth to spiny undersurface, the corticioid fungi currently comprise around 1700 species worldwide, distributed amongst some 250 genera. They constitute around 13% of the known to date. Most corticioid fungi are wood-rotting species and rely on wood degradation as their means of nutrition. Although the fruiting bodies are formed on the underside of branches or logs. A number of species are litter-rotting and produce fruitbodies underneath fallen leaves, some of these species are known to be ectomycorrhizal. A few specialist species grow on dead stems and leaves or on dead grass, rush. Parasites of plants and other fungi are found in the group
10.
Trametes versicolor
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Trametes is a genus of fungi that is distinguished by a pileate basidiocarp, di- to trimitic hyphal systems, smooth non-dextrinoid spores, and a hymenium usually without true hymenial cystidia. The genus has a distribution and contains about fifty species. The genus was first described by Elias Magnus Fries in 1835, Trametes fungi are food for caterpillars of certain Lepidoptera, mainly fungus moths such as Triaxomera parasitella. Trametes gibbosa – Lumpy bracket Trametes hirsuta – Hairy bracket Trametes nivosa Trametes pubescens Trametes versicolor – Turkey tail 3, towards a phylogeny of Trametes alliance
11.
Pycnoporus
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Pycnoporus is a genus of fungi in the Polyporaceae family. This genus is distinguished from most other polypores because of its brilliant red-orange color, modern mycology recognizes five distinct species of Pycnoporus, the type P. cinnabarinus, P. coccineus, P. palibini, P. puniceus, and P. sanguineus. These species are divided somewhat by morphology, biogeography, and DNA sequence, Pycnoporus cinnabarinus occurs in cooler, temperate regions within Europe and North America. Pycnoporus sanguineus occurs in warmer, tropical regions within South America, North America, Pycnoporus coccineus occurs in temperate areas of Australia and New Zealand. Pycnoporus puniceus is a species found in Southeastern Asia and Malaysia. Pycnoporus is used in industry as a source of powerful lignolytic enzymes can degrade paper and these fungi are studied in the production of laccase for use in biotechnology. Fruiting bodies are typically sessile, corky, slightly tomentose to glaborose, on fallen hardwood logs, but can be on coniferous trees as well. These fungi live in habitats, but are typically located near a source of water. Pileus length x width x height can range from 1-9 cm x 1-7 cm x 0. 2-2 cm, colors range on the scale of paprika red to flame orange but almost always are vibrant. Spores are white, oblong, somewhat pointed, 2-3 x 4-6 um, KOH reactions yield a dark brown to black color for most specimens but can bleach out the pileus of a few specimens over longer time periods. Specimens typically retain their strong red-orange color for long periods of time, yet some turn dingy brown or gray and fade in color over time. In order to identify the species of Pycnoporus a few characteristics must be carefully observed, to distinguish between P. cinnabarinus and P. sanguineus one must note the thickness of the pileus. P. cinnabarinus has a body ranging from 5 to 15 mm in thickness while P. sanguineus ranges from 1-5 mm thick. Additionally P. sanguineus typically contains darker red pigments that do not easily fade, several collected specimens of P. cinnabarinus show pale orange pigmentation in areas with direct sunlight. The major enzyme that differentiates this fungus from other white rotters is laccase, other uses have been reported in Australia. Aboriginal peoples have used it for curing mouth sores, ulcers, eggert, C, Temp, U, & Eriksson, K-EL. Lignolytic system of the white rot fungus Pycnoporus cinnabarinus, Purification and characterization of the laccase, molecular analysis of a laccase gene from the white rot fungus Pycnoporus cinnabarinus. Gilbertson, RL & Ryvarden, L. North American polypores, the polyporaceae of the United States, Alaska, and Canada
12.
Daedaleopsis confragosa
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Daedaleopsis confragosa, commonly known as the thin walled maze polypore or the blushing bracket, is a species of polypore fungus in the family Polyporaceae. A plant pathogen, it causes a rot of injured hardwoods. The fruit bodies are semicircular and tough, have a concentrically zoned brownish upper surface, the whitish underside turns gray-brown as the fruit body ages, but bruises pink or red. It is found all year and is common in temperate woodlands of eastern North America, Europe. The species was first described from Europe in 1791 as a form of Boletus and it acquired its current name when Joseph Schröter transferred it to Daedaleopsis in 1888. Daedaleopsis confragosa was first described scientifically under the name Boletus confragosus by English naturalist James Bolton, in his 1791 work An History of Fungusses and he reported finding specimens on old trees near Fixby Hall, and having specimens sent to him from Darlington. It was transferred to its current genus, Daedaleopsis, by German mycologist Joseph Schröter in 1888, D. confragosa is the type species of the genus Daedaleopsis. L. Ljubarskii published var. bulliardi and var. rubecens in 1975, variety tricolor, proposed by Appollinaris Semenovich Bondartsev and Rolf Singer in 1953, is now the independent species Daedaleopsis tricolor. Bondartsev described the form sibirica in 1953, but this is no longer independent. The polypore has acquired several names, including thin-maze flat polypore, thin walled maze polypore, blood-stained bracket. The latter name refers to its characteristic bruising reaction, James Bolton referred to it as the rugged boletus. The shelflike or bracketlike fruit body is fan-shaped to semicircular, and typically measures 5–15 cm in diameter and its upper surface is broadly convex to flat, dry, smooth to somewhat hairy, and usually has concentric zone lines. Its color ranges from brown to brown to grayish, sometimes becoming blackish in maturity. The cap surface may have an umbo at the point of attachment to the substrate, fruit bodies are leathery to corky when moist, but become hard and rigid when dry. The flesh is white to pinkish to brownish and tough, the underside of the fruit bodies features tiny pores measuring about 0. 5–1.5 mm in diameter. They are white to tan to brown, but will develop pinkish or reddish tones if bruised, pore shape is highly variable, ranging from circular to elongated, to mazelike, to gill-like. The tubes are up to 1.5 cm long, the fruit body lacks a stalk, as the shelf attaches directly to the substrate. The inedible fruit bodies have no odor and a slightly bitter taste
13.
Laetiporus sulphureus
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Laetiporus sulphureus is a species of bracket fungus found in Europe and North America. Its common names are crab-of-the-woods, sulphur polypore, sulphur shelf and its fruit bodies grow as striking golden-yellow shelf-like structures on tree trunks and branches. Old fruitbodies fade to pale beige or pale grey, the undersurface of the fruit body is made up of tubelike pores rather than gills. Laetiporus sulphureus is a saprophyte and occasionally a parasite, causing brown cubical rot in the heartwood of trees on which it grows. Unlike many bracket fungi, it is edible when young, although adverse reactions have been reported, Laetiporus sulphureus was first described as Boletus sulphureus by French mycologist Pierre Bulliard in 1789. It has had many synonyms and was given its current name in 1920 by American mycologist William Murrill. Laetiporus means with bright pores and sulphureus means the colour of sulphur, all of the other tested species grow on angiosperms. Cincinnatus clade, contains L. cincinnatus Sulphureus clade I, contains white-pored L. sulfureus isolates, Sulphureus clade II, contains yellow-pored L. sulfureus isolates. Gilbertsonii clade, contains L. gilbertsonii and unidentified Caribbean isolates, the cap is attached directly to the trunk of a tree and is initially knob-shaped, but soon expands to fan-shaped, typically growing in overlapping tiers. It is sulphur-yellow to bright orange in colour and has a suedelike texture, old fruitbodies fade to tan or whitish. Each shelve may be anywhere from 5 to 60 cm in diameter and 4 cm thick, the fertile surface is sulphur-yellow with small pores or tubes and has a white spore print. When fresh, the flesh is succulent and exudes a yellowish juice and it has a strong, fungusy smell. Laetiporus sulphureus is widely distributed across Europe and North America though may be restricted to east of the Rockies, in the Mediterranean region, this species is usually found on Ceratonia and Eucalyptus. It can usually be found growing in clusters, the mushroom causes brown cubical rot on the heartwood in the roots, base and stem. At first the wood is discoloured yellowish to red, later on it becomes reddish-brown and brittle. At the last stage the wood can be rubbed like powder between the fingers, a specimen weighing 100 pounds was found in the New Forest, Hampshire, United Kingdom, on 15 October 1990. Because of the taste, the mushroom has been called chicken polypore, many people think that the mushroom tastes like crab or lobster. The authors of Mushrooms in Color said that the mushroom tastes good sauteed in butter or prepared in a sauce served on toast or rice
14.
Fungus
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A fungus is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from the other eukaryotic life kingdoms of plants, a characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria and some protists, is chitin in their cell walls. Similar to animals, fungi are heterotrophs, they acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, growth is their means of mobility, except for spores, which may travel through the air or water. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems and this fungal group is distinct from the structurally similar myxomycetes and oomycetes. The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology, in the past, mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants. Abundant worldwide, most fungi are inconspicuous because of the size of their structures. Fungi include symbionts of plants, animals, or other fungi and they may become noticeable when fruiting, either as mushrooms or as molds. Fungi perform a role in the decomposition of organic matter and have fundamental roles in nutrient cycling. Since the 1940s, fungi have been used for the production of antibiotics, Fungi are also used as biological pesticides to control weeds, plant diseases and insect pests. Many species produce bioactive compounds called mycotoxins, such as alkaloids and polyketides, the fruiting structures of a few species contain psychotropic compounds and are consumed recreationally or in traditional spiritual ceremonies. Fungi can break down manufactured materials and buildings, and become significant pathogens of humans, losses of crops due to fungal diseases or food spoilage can have a large impact on human food supplies and local economies. The fungus kingdom encompasses a diversity of taxa with varied ecologies, life cycle strategies. However, little is known of the biodiversity of Kingdom Fungi. Advances in molecular genetics have opened the way for DNA analysis to be incorporated into taxonomy, phylogenetic studies published in the last decade have helped reshape the classification within Kingdom Fungi, which is divided into one subkingdom, seven phyla, and ten subphyla. The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus, used in the writings of Horace, a group of all the fungi present in a particular area or geographic region is known as mycobiota, e. g. the mycobiota of Ireland. Like plants, fungi grow in soil and, in the case of mushrooms, form conspicuous fruit bodies. The fungi are now considered a kingdom, distinct from both plants and animals, from which they appear to have diverged around one billion years ago. Fungi have membrane-bound cytoplasmic organelles such as mitochondria, sterol-containing membranes and they have a characteristic range of soluble carbohydrates and storage compounds, including sugar alcohols, disaccharides, and polysaccharides
15.
Sporocarp (fungi)
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In fungi, the sporocarp is a multicellular structure on which spore-producing structures, such as basidia or asci, are borne. The fruitbody is part of the phase of a fungal life cycle, with the rest of the life cycle being characterized by vegetative mycelial growth. The sporocarp of a basidiomycete is known as a basidiocarp or basidiome, many shapes and morphologies are found in both basidiocarps and ascocarps, these features play an important role in the identification and taxonomy of fungi. Fruitbodies are termed epigeous if they grow on the ground, like those of ordinary mushrooms, during their evolution truffles lost the ability to disperse their spores by air currents, and propagate instead by animal consumption and subsequent dispersal of their spores. In amateur mushroom hunting, and to a degree in academic mycology as well. The largest known fruitbody is a specimen of Phellinus ellipsoideus found on Hainan and it measures up to 1,085 centimetres in length and is estimated to weigh between 400 and 500 kilograms. Pileus area index Zabowski, D. Zasoski, R. J. Littke, W. Ammirati, J. Metal content of fungal sporocarps from urban, rural, and sludge-treated sites
16.
Tree
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In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk. In looser senses, the palms, the tree ferns, bananas. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old, the tallest known tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands 115.6 m high. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years and it is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk and this trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier, below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely, they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. Above ground, the divide into smaller branches and shoots. The shoots typically bear leaves, which light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the trees growth. Flowers and fruit may also be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones, others, such as tree ferns, trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues, trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. Tropical rainforests are one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as having many other uses. In parts of the world, forests are shrinking as trees are cleared to increase the amount of available for agriculture. Because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always revered, with sacred groves in various cultures. Although tree is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language. In its broadest sense, a tree is any plant with the form of an elongated stem, or trunk. Trees are also defined by height, with smaller plants from 0.5 to 10 m being called shrubs
17.
Coarse woody debris
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Coarse woody debris or coarse woody habitat refers to fallen dead trees and the remains of large branches on the ground in forests and in rivers or wetlands. A dead standing tree is known as a snag and provides many of the functions as coarse woody debris. The minimum size required for woody debris to be defined as coarse varies by author, the amount of coarse woody debris is considered to be an important criterion for the evaluation and restoration of temperate deciduous forest. Coarse woody debris is important in wetlands, particularly in deltas where woody debris accumulates. Coarse woody debris comes from natural tree mortality, disease, and insects, as well as events such as fires, storms. Ancient, or old growth, forest, with its trees and woody remains lying where they fell to feed new vegetation, constitutes the ideal woodland in terms of recycling. In healthy temperate forests, dead wood comprises up to thirty per cent of all woody biomass, in old growth Douglas fir forests of the Pacific Northwest of North America, CWD concentrations were found to be from 72 metric tons/hectare in drier sites to 174 t/ha in moister sites. Australian native forests have mean CWD concentrations ranging from 19 t/ha to 134 t/ha, coarse woody debris and its subsequent decomposition recycles nutrients that are essential for living organisms, such as carbon, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. However CWD itself is extremely scarce in physiologically important nutrients, to fulfill nutritional requirements of consumers, CWD must be first nutritionally enriched by transport of nutrients from outside of CWD. Thus CWD is important actor contributing to soil nutrients cycles, CWD, while itself not particularly rich in nitrogen, contributes nitrogen to the ecosystem by acting as a host for nonsymbiotic free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Scientific studies show that coarse woody debris can be a significant contributor to carbon sequestration. Trees store atmospheric carbon in their wood using photosynthesis, once the trees die, fungi and other saprotrophs transfer some of that carbon from CWD into the soil. This sequestration can continue in old-growth forests for hundreds of years, by providing both food and microhabitats for many species, coarse woody debris helps to maintain the biodiversity of forest ecosystems. Up to forty percent of all forest fauna is dependent on CWD, colonizing organisms that live on the remains of cambium and sapwood of dead trees aid decomposition and attract predators that prey on them and so continue the chain of metabolizing the biomass. One third of all woodland birds live in the cavities of dead tree trunks, woodpeckers, tits, chickadees, and owls all live in dead trees, and grouse shelter behind woody debris. Some plants use coarse woody debris as habitat, mosses and lichens may cover logs, while ferns and trees may regenerate on the top of logs. Large fragments of CWD that provide habitat for herbs, shrubs. CWD can also protect plants from herbivory damage by acting as barriers to browsing animals
18.
Mushroom
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A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. These gills produce microscopic spores that help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface, by extension, the term mushroom can also designate the entire fungus when in culture, the thallus of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms, or the species itself. Identifying mushrooms requires an understanding of their macroscopic structure. Their spores, called basidiospores, are produced on the gills, at the microscopic level the basidiospores are shot off basidia and then fall between the gills in the dead air space. As a result, for most mushrooms, if the cap is cut off and placed gill-side-down overnight, the color of the powdery print, called a spore print, is used to help classify mushrooms and can help to identify them. Spore print colors include white, brown, black, purple-brown, pink, yellow, and creamy, but almost never blue, green, or red. The presence of juices upon breaking, bruising reactions, odors, tastes, shades of color, habitat, habit, tasting and smelling mushrooms carries its own hazards because of poisons and allergens. Chemical tests are used for some genera. In general, identification to genus can often be accomplished in the using a local mushroom guide. However, over-mature specimens lose features and cease producing spores, many novices have mistaken humid water marks on paper for white spore prints, or discolored paper from oozing liquids on lamella edges for colored spored prints. Typical mushrooms are the bodies of members of the order Agaricales, whose type genus is Agaricus and type species is the field mushroom. Other mushrooms are not gilled, so the mushroom is loosely used. Some have pores underneath, others have spines, such as the mushroom and other tooth fungi. Mushroom has been used for polypores, puffballs, jelly fungi, coral fungi, bracket fungi, stinkhorns, thus, the term is more one of common application to macroscopic fungal fruiting bodies than one having precise taxonomic meaning. Approximately 14,000 species of mushrooms are described, the terms mushroom and toadstool go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application. Between 1400 and 1600 AD, the terms mushrom, mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, the term mushroom and its variations may have been derived from the French word mousseron in reference to moss. However, delineation between edible and poisonous fungi is not clear-cut, so a mushroom may be edible, poisonous, cultural or social phobias of mushrooms and fungi may be related. The term fungophobia was coined by William Delisle Hay of England, the word toadstool has apparent analogies in Dutch paddestoel and German Krötenschwamm
19.
Basidiospore
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A basidiospore is a reproductive spore produced by Basidiomycete fungi, a grouping that includes mushrooms, shelf fungi, rusts, and smuts. Basidiospores typically each contain one haploid nucleus that is the product of meiosis, typically, four basidiospores develop on appendages from each basidium. In gills under a cap of one species, there exist millions of basidia. Some gilled mushrooms in the order Agaricales have the ability to release billions of spores, the puffball fungus Calvatia gigantea has been calculated to produce about five trillion basidiospores. Most basidiospores are forcibly discharged, and are thus considered ballistospores and these spores serve as the main air dispersal units for the fungi. The spores are released during periods of high humidity and generally have a night-time or pre-dawn peak concentration in the atmosphere, when basidiospores encounter a favorable substrate, they may germinate, typically by forming hyphae. These hyphae grow outward from the spore, forming an expanding circle of mycelium. The circular shape of a fungal colony explains the formation of fairy rings, some basidiospores germinate repetitively by forming small spores instead of hyphae. Basidiospores are generally characterized by an attachment peg on its surface and this is where the spore was attached to the basidium. The hilar appendage is quite prominent in some basidiospores, but less evident in others, an apical germ pore may also be present. Many basidiospores have an asymmetric shape due to their development on the basidium, basidiospores are typically single-celled, and typically range from spherical to oval to oblong, to ellipsoid or cylindrical. The surface of the spore can be smooth, or it can be ornamented
20.
Phylogenetics
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In biology, phylogenetics /ˌfaɪloʊdʒəˈnɛtɪks, -lə-/ is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms. These relationships are discovered through phylogenetic inference methods that evaluate observed heritable traits, the result of these analyses is a phylogeny – a diagrammatic hypothesis about the history of the evolutionary relationships of a group of organisms. The tips of a tree can be living organisms or fossils. Phylogenetic analyses have become central to understanding biodiversity, evolution, ecology, taxonomy is the classification, identification and naming of organisms. It is usually richly informed by phylogenetics, but remains a methodologically and logically distinct discipline, usual methods of phylogenetic inference involve computational approaches implementing the optimality criteria and methods of parsimony, maximum likelihood, and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. All these depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed, prior to 1990, phylogenetic inferences were generally presented as narrative scenarios. Such methods are often ambiguous and lack explicit criteria for evaluating alternative hypotheses, the term phylogeny derives from the German Phylogenie, introduced by Haeckel in 1866, and the Darwinian approach to classification became known as the phyletic approach. During the late 19th century, Ernst Haeckels recapitulation theory, or biogenetic fundamental law, was widely accepted, but this theory has long been rejected. O. See, Huerta-Cepas, Jaime, Dopazo, Joaquín, Gabaldón, ETE, A python Environment for Tree Exploration. PhylomeDB, A public database hosting thousands of gene phylogenies ranging many different species, See, Huerta-Cepas, J. Capella-Gutierrez, S. Pryszcz, L. P. Denisov, I. Kormes, D. Marcet-Houben, M. Gabaldón, T. PhylomeDB v3.0, An expanding repository of genome-wide collections of trees, alignments, lents, N. H. Cifuentes, O. E. Carpi, A. Teaching the Process of Molecular Phylogeny and Systematics, A Multi-Part Inquiry-Based Exercise
21.
Clade
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A clade is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single branch on the tree of life. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, a species, clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently, over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming taxa that are not clades, the term clade was coined in 1957 by the biologist Julian Huxley to refer to the result of cladogenesis, a concept Huxley borrowed from Bernhard Rensch. Many commonly named groups are clades, for example, rodents or insects, because in each case, their name refers to a common ancestor with all its descendant branches. Rodents, for example, are a branch of mammals that split off after the end of the period when the clade Dinosauria stopped being the dominant terrestrial vertebrates 66 million years ago, the original population and all its descendants are a clade. The rodent clade corresponds to the order Rodentia, and insects to the class Insecta and these clades include smaller clades, such as chipmunk or ant, each of which consists of even smaller clades. The clade rodent is in included in the mammal, vertebrate. The phenomenon of convergent evolution is, however, responsible for cases where there are misleading similarities in the morphology of groups that evolved from different lineages. The publication of Darwins theory of evolution in 1859 gave this view increasing weight, thomas Henry Huxley, an early advocate of evolutionary theory, proposed a revised taxonomy based on clades. For example, he grouped birds with reptiles, based on fossil evidence, german biologist Emil Hans Willi Hennig is considered to be the founder of cladistics. Taxonomists have increasingly worked to make the taxonomic system reflect evolution, when it comes to naming, however, this principle is not always compatible with the traditional rank-based nomenclature. For these and other reasons, phylogenetic nomenclature has been developed, a clade is by definition monophyletic, meaning that it contains one ancestor and all its descendants. The ancestor can be known or unknown, any and all members of a clade can be extant or extinct, the science that tries to reconstruct phylogenetic trees and thus discover clades is called phylogenetics or cladistics, the latter term coined by Ernst Mayr, derived from clade. The results of analyses are tree-shaped diagrams called cladograms, they. Three methods of defining clades are featured in phylogenetic nomenclature, node-, stem-, the relationship between clades can be described in several ways, A clade located within a clade is said to be nested within that clade. In the diagram, the clade, i. e. the apes. Two clades are sisters if they have a common ancestor
22.
Fistulina hepatica
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Fistulina hepatica is an unusual bracket fungus classified in the Agaricales, that is commonly seen in Britain, but can be found in North America, Australia, North Africa, and the rest of Europe. As its name suggests, it remarkably similar to a slab of raw meat. It has been used as a substitute in the past. It has a sour, slightly acidic taste, for eating it must be collected young and it may be tough and need long cooking. The shape resembles a large tongue, and it is rough-surfaced with a reddish-brown colour, the spores are released from minute pores on the creamy-white underside of the fruit body. A younger Fistulina hepatica is a colour, and it darkens with age. It bleeds a red juice when cut, with the cut flesh further resembling meat. The underside of the body, from which the spores are ejected, is a mass of tubules. The genus name is a diminutive of the Latin word fistula and means small tube, whilst the species name hepatica means liver-like, referring to the consistency of the flesh. The species is common, and can often be found on oaks and sweet chestnut, from August to the end of autumn. It has a tendency to impart a reddish-brown stain to the wood of oaks. In Australia, it can be found growing from wounds on Eucalyptus trees and it causes a brown rot on the trees which it infects. Fistulina is a genus, meaning that it is closely related to gilled fungi. The underside is a mass of tubules which represent a form of the ancestral gills. Forest pathology List of meat substitutes Food portal mushroomexpert. com Description and additional links
23.
Agaricales
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The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families,413 genera, and over 13000 described species and they range from the ubiquitous common mushroom to the deadly destroying angel and the hallucinogenic fly agaric to the bioluminescent jack-o-lantern mushroom. In his three volumes of Systema Mycologicum published between 1821 and 1832, Elias Fries put almost all of the fleshy, gill-forming mushrooms in the genus Agaricus and he organized the large genus into tribes, the names of many of which still exist as common genera of today. Fries later elevated several of these tribes to generic level, but later authors—including Gillet, Karsten, Kummer, Quélet, Fries based his classification on macroscopic characters of the fruit bodies and color of the spore print. His system had been used as it had the advantage that many genera could be readily identified based on characters observable in the field. Friess classification was later challenged when microscopic studies of basidiocarp structure, initiated by Fayod and Patouillard, singer treated three major groups within the Agaricales sensu lato, the Agaricales sensu stricto, Boletineae, and Russulales. These groups are still accepted by modern treatments based on DNA analysis, as the clade, bolete clade. Molecular phylogenetics research has demonstrated that the clade is roughly equivalent to Singers Agaricales sensu stricto. The analysis showed that most of the species tested could be grouped into six clades that were named the Agaricoid, Tricholomatoid, Marasmioid, Pluteoid, Hygrophoroid and Plicaturopsidoid clades. Some notable fungi with gill-like structures, such as chanterelles, have long recognized as being substantially different from usual Agaricales. Also, some quite distinctive fungi, the puffballs, and some clavaroid fungi, e. g. Typhula. The term agaric had traditionally referred to Agaricales, which were defined as exactly those fungi with gills, given the discoveries described above, those two categories are not synonymous. Agarics are ubiquitous, being found across all continents, most are terrestrial, their habitats including all types of woodland and grassland, varying largely from one genus to another. Agarics were long thought to be terrestrial, until the 2005 discovery of Psathyrella aquatica. Agaricals are known from five monotypic genera found fossilized in amber, the oldest records are from two Cretaceous age genera, the Albian age Palaeoagaracites antiquus from Burmese amber and the slightly younger Turonian New Jersey Amber species Archaeomarasmius leggeti. The three other species, Aureofungus yaniguaensis, Coprinites dominicana and Protomycena electra are known from specimens found in the Dominican amber mines of Hispaniola. Basidiocarps of the agarics are typically fleshy, with a stipe, often called a stem or stalk, a pileus and lamellae and this is the stereotypical structure of a mushroom. The fungus fruit body is the stage of the life cycle
24.
Fomitopsis betulina
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The brackets burst out from the bark of the tree, and these fruiting bodies can last for more than a year. Technically, it is a mushroom, with a strong, pleasant mushroomy odor. The velvety cut surface of the body was traditionally used as a strop for finishing the finest of edges on razors. It is also said to have medicinal properties, the fruiting bodies are pale, with a smooth greyish-brown top surface, with the underside a creamy white and with hundreds of pores that contain the spores. The fruiting body has a texture, becoming corky with age. Wood decayed by the fungus, and cultures of its mycelium, there are at least 33 different mating-type factors within the British population of this fungus. These factors are all variants or alleles of a gene, as opposed to the tetrapolar mating system of some other basidiomycete species. The geographic distribution of Piptoporus betulinus appears to be restricted to the Northern Hemisphere, there is some doubt about the ability of isolates from the European continent, North America and the British Isles to interbreed. It is a parasite on weakened birches, and will cause brown rot and eventually death. Fire, drought and suppression by other trees are common causes of such stress and these fungal individuals can sometimes be seen if a slice of brown-rotted birch wood is incubated in a plastic bag for several days. This allows the mycelium of the fungus to grow out of the surface of the wood. If more than one individual dikaryon is present, lines of intraspecific antagonism form as the two individual mycelia interact and repel each other, the fungus can harbor a large number of species of insects that depend on it for food and as breeding sites. In a large-scale study of over 2600 fruit bodies collected in eastern Canada,257 species of arthropods, the fungus is eaten by the caterpillars of the fungus moth Nemaxera betulinella. Piptoporus betulinus has anti-inflammatory compounds and antibacterial properties, polyporenic acid found in the fruit body of the fungus, is poisonous to the parasitic whipworm Trichuris trichura. The fungus was carried by Ötzi the Iceman – the 5, 000-year-old mummy found in Tyrol
25.
Cerioporus squamosus
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Polyporus squamosus aka Cerioporus squamosus is a basidiomycete bracket fungus, with common names including dryads saddle and pheasants back mushroom. It has a distribution, being found in North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe. The species was first described scientifically by British botanist William Hudson in 1778 and it was given its current name Polyporus Squamosus in 1886 by Quélet. This mushroom is commonly attached to dead logs or stumps at one point with a thick stem, generally, the fruit body is 8–30 cm across and up to 10 cm thick. The body can be yellow to brown and has squamules or scales on its upper side, on the underside one can see the pores that are characteristic of the genus Cerioporus, they are made up of tubes packed together closely. The tubes are between 1 and 12 mm long, the stalk is thick and short, up to 5 cm long. The fruit body will produce a spore print if laid onto a sheet of paper. They can be alone, in clusters of two or three, or forming shelves. Young specimens are soft but toughen with age and it is particularly common on dead elm and is also found on living maple trees. This organism is common and widespread, being found east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and it is also found in Australia and Asia. It commonly fruits in the spring, occasionally during autumn, many mushroom hunters will stumble upon this when looking for morels during the spring as both have similar fruiting times, and this fungus can grow to a noticeable size of up to 50 cm across. It plays an important role in woodland ecosystems by decomposing wood, usually elm, other tree hosts include ash, beech, horse chestnut, Persian walnut, lime, maple, planetree, poplar, and willow. Young specimens are preferred, as they can become infested with maggots and become firm, rubbery, cookbooks dealing with preparation generally recommend gathering these while young, slicing them into small pieces and cooking them over a low heat. Some people value the thick, stiff paper that can be made from this, the mushrooms smell resembles watermelon rind. Polyporus squamosus has a nutty flavour. Polyporus squamosus Mushroom-Collecting. com, Polyporus squamosus – Dryads Saddle
26.
Ganoderma applanatum
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Ganoderma applanatum is a bracket fungus with a cosmopolitan distribution. This fungus grows as a mycelium within the wood of living and it forms fruiting bodies that are up to 30–60 centimetres across, hard, woody-textured, and inedible, they are white at first but soon turn dark red-brown. Brown spores are released from the pores on the underside of the fruiting body, the fruiting bodies are perennial, and may persist for multiple years, increasing in size and forming new layers of pores as they grow. It is a fungus, causing a rot of heartwood in a variety of trees. It can also grow as a pathogen of live sapwood, particularly on older trees, a peculiarity of this fungus lies in its use as a drawing medium for artists. The Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam suffered rot from Ganoderma applanatum before it blew over in 2010, studies have shown Ganoderma applanatum contains compounds with potent anti-tumor, antibacterial anti-fibrotic properties. There is anecdotal references of higher primates consuming this fungus for self-medication, in the book Gorillas In the Mist Dian Fossey writes the following about gorillas eating Ganoderma applanatum, Still another special food is bracket fungus. The shelflike projection is difficult to free, so younger animals often have to wrap their arms and legs awkwardly around a trunk. Both the scarcity of the fungus and the liking of it cause many intragroup squabbles, a number of which are settled by the silverback. The midge Agathomyia wankowiczii lays its eggs on the body of the fungus. The forked fungus beetle, Bolitotherus cornutus lives out its life cycle in the fruiting bodies of Ganoderma applanatum. Forest pathology Medicinal mushrooms Phillips, D. H. & Burdekin, diseases of Forest and Ornamental Trees
27.
Stipe (mycology)
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In mycology, a stipe is the stem or stalk-like feature supporting the cap of a mushroom. Like all tissues of the other than the hymenium, the stipe is composed of sterile hyphal tissue. In many instances, however, the fertile hymenium extends down the stipe some distance, fungi that have stipes are said to be stipitate. The evolutionary benefit of a stipe is generally considered to be in mediating spore dispersal, an elevated mushroom will more easily release its spores into wind currents or onto passing animals. Nevertheless, many mushrooms do not have stipes, including cup fungi, puffballs, earthstars, some polypores, jelly fungi, ergots and it is often the case that features of the stipe are required to make a positive identification of a mushroom
28.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
29.
Mycelium
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Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus or fungus-like bacterial colony, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. The mass of hyphae is sometimes called shiro, especially within the fairy ring fungi, fungal colonies composed of mycelium are found in and on soil and many other substrates. A mycelium may be minute, forming a colony that is too small to see, or it may be extensive and this 2, 400-acre site in eastern Oregon had a contiguous growth of mycelium before logging roads cut through it. Mushroom-forming forest fungi are unique in that their mycelial mats can achieve such massive proportions, through the mycelium, a fungus absorbs nutrients from its environment. It does this in a two-stage process, first, the hyphae secrete enzymes onto or into the food source, which break down biological polymers into smaller units such as monomers. These monomers are then absorbed into the mycelium by facilitated diffusion, mycelium is vital in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for their role in the decomposition of plant material. They contribute to the fraction of soil, and their growth releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Mycelium is an important food source for many soil invertebrates, mycelium, like fungus, can be considered a mass noun, a word that can be either singular or plural. The term mycelia, though, like fungi, is used as the preferred plural form. Sclerotia are compact or hard masses of mycelium, one of the primary roles of fungi in an ecosystem is to decompose organic compounds. Petroleum products and some pesticides are organic molecules, and thereby present a potential source for fungi. Hence, fungi have the potential to eradicate such pollutants from their environment unless the chemicals prove toxic to the fungus and this biological degradation is a process known as bioremediation. Mycelial mats have been suggested as having potential as biological filters, removing chemicals and microorganisms from soil, the use of fungal mycelium to accomplish this has been termed mycofiltration. Knowledge of the relationship between fungi and plants suggests new ways to improve crop yields. When spread on logging roads, mycelium can act as a binder, holding new soil in place, since 2007, a company called Ecovative Design has been developing alternatives to polystyrene and plastic packaging by growing mycelium in agricultural waste. The two ingredients are mixed together and placed into a mold for 3–5 days to grow into a durable material, depending on the strain of mycelium used, they make many different varieties of the material including water absorbent, flame retardant, and dielectric. Fungi are essential for converting biomass into compost, as they decompose feedstock components such as lignin, turning a backyard compost pile will commonly expose visible networks of mycelia that have formed on the decaying organic material within. Compost is a soil amendment and fertilizer for organic farming and gardening
30.
Birch
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A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus Betula, in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae, the genus Betula contains 30 to 60 known taxa of which 11 are on the IUCN2011 Green List of Threatened Species. They are a typically rather short-lived pioneer species widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in northern temperate, Birch species are generally small to medium-sized trees or shrubs, mostly of northern temperate and boreal climates. The simple leaves are alternate, singly or doubly serrate, feather-veined and they often appear in pairs, but these pairs are really borne on spur-like, two-leaved, lateral branchlets. The fruit is a samara, although the wings may be obscure in some species. They differ from the alders in that the female catkins are not woody and disintegrate at maturity, falling apart to release the seeds, unlike the woody, cone-like female alder catkins. The bark of all birches is characteristically marked with long, horizontal lenticels and its decided color gives the common names gray, white, black, silver and yellow birch to different species. The buds form early and are grown by midsummer, all are lateral, no terminal bud is formed. The wood of all the species is close-grained with satiny texture, staminate aments are pendulous, clustered or solitary in the axils of the last leaves of the branch of the year or near the ends of the short lateral branchlets of the year. They form in autumn and remain rigid during the winter. The scales of the staminate aments when mature are broadly ovate, rounded, yellow or orange color below the middle, each scale bears two bractlets and three sterile flowers, each flower consisting of a sessile, membranaceous, usually two-lobed, calyx. Each calyx bears four short filaments with one-celled anthers or strictly, the pistillate aments are erect or pendulous, solitary, terminal on the two-leaved lateral spur-like branchlets of the year. The pistillate scales are oblong-ovate, three-lobed, pale yellow green often tinged with red and these scales bear two or three fertile flowers, each flower consisting of a naked ovary. The ovary is compressed, two-celled, and crowned with two styles, the ovule is solitary. Each scale bear a small, winged nut that is oval. Betula species are organised into five subgenera, pendula and B. pubescens confused, though they are distinct species with different chromosome numbers. This root is derived from *bʰreh₁ǵ- ‘to shine’, in reference to the birchs white bark. The Proto-Germanic rune berkanan is named after the birch, the generic name betula is from Latin, which is a diminutive borrowed from Gaulish betua
31.
Dipterocarpaceae
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Dipterocarpaceae are a family of 16 genera and approximately 695 known species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek, the largest genera are Shorea, Hopea, Dipterocarpus, and Vatica. Many are large forest emergent species, typically reaching heights of 40–70 m, some even over 80 m, the species of this family are of major importance in the timber trade. Their distribution is pantropical, from northern South America to Africa, the greatest diversity of Dipterocarpaceae occurs in Borneo. Some species are now endangered as a result of overcutting, extensive illegal logging and they provide valuable woods, aromatic essential oils, balsam, resins and are a source for plywood. The dipterocarp family is divided into two subfamilies, Dipterocarpoideae, the largest of the subfamilies, it contains 13 genera and about 475 species. Distribution includes the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, India, Southeast Asia to New Guinea, and a distribution in Borneo. North Borneo is the richest area in the world for dipterocarp species, the genera of this group have valvate sepals in fruit, solitary vessels, scattered resin canals, and basic chromosome number x =11. The genera of this group have imbricate sepals in fruit, grouped vessels, resin canals in tangential bands, a recent molecular study suggest that the genus Hopea forms a clade with Shorea sections Anthoshorea and Doona, and should be merged into Shorea. Monotes has 26 species, distributed across Africa and Madagascar, pseudomonotes is native to the Colombian Amazon. Pakaraimoideae, formerly placed here contains a single species, Pakaraimaea roraimae, the first dipterocarp pollen has been found in Myanmar and it dates from the upper Oligocene. 52-million-year-old amber found in the Gujarat province, India, containing an amount of fossilized arthropods, was identified as sap from the Dipterocarpaceae family. Dipterocarpaceae species can be evergreen or deciduous. Species occurring in Thailand grows from sea level to c.1300 m elevation, environments in which the species of the family occur in Thailand include, Lowland dipterocarp forest 0–350 m, Riparian fringe, Limestone hills, and Coastal hills. A Review of Dipterocarps, Taxonomy, ecology and silviculture, Dipterocarpaceae Data Base Dipterocarpaceae in L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz. The families of flowering plants, descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval
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Phellinus igniarius
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Phellinus igniarius is a fungus of the family of Hymenochaetaceae. Like other members of the genus of Phellinus it lives by saprotrophic nutrition, in which the lignin and cellulose of a host tree is degraded and is a cause of white rot. Common names are Willow bracket and Fire sponge The fungus forms perennial fruiting bodies that rise as woody-hard, unlike most fungi it has a hard woody consistency and may persist for many years, building a new surface layer each year. It was prized as kindling material, the species is a polypore, with pores on the underside that bear basidiospores. The species causes a rot that leads to the tree to decay. Woodpeckers are known to favour its site as a place to excavate a nesting chamber since the wood will be soft. The bracket measures, 5–20 cm in diameter, but in cases may be 40 cm wide. The thickness of the bracket varies from 2–12 cm, to 20 cm in exceptional cases, the fungus has small, grayish brown pores whose density is 4-6 per square mm. Its tubes have a length of about 2–7 mm, each year, the fungus forms a new layer of tubes superimposed on the old layers. Unreleased old spores often find themselves sealed in by later growth that clog the tubes, the flesh becomes harder with age and dryness, with humidity it softens. The smell of the body has a pronounced mushroom character. Upon contact with potassium hydroxide, the flesh is dyed black, the spores of the P. igniarius form a whitish cast. It is considered to be inedible
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Fomes fomentarius
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Fomes fomentarius is a species of fungal plant pathogen found in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The species produces very large fruit bodies which are shaped like a horses hoof and vary in colour from a silvery grey to almost black. It grows on the side of various species of tree, which it infects through broken bark, the species typically continues to live on trees long after they have died, changing from a parasite to a decomposer. Though inedible, F. fomentarius has traditionally seen use as the ingredient of amadou, a material used primarily as tinder. The 5, 000-year-old Ötzi the Iceman carried four pieces of F. fomentarius and it also has medicinal and other uses. The species is both a pest and useful in timber production, the first scientific description of the fungus appeared in the literature in the 1753 Species Plantarum by Carl Linnaeus, he called it Boletus fomentarius. The specific epithet fomentarius is from the Latin fomentum, referring to tinder, the species has been described as a member of numerous different genera. In 1783, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck named the species Agaricus fomentarius in his Encyclopédie Méthodique, Botanique, fries later, in his 1849 Summa vegetabilium Scandinaviae, moved the species to the genus Fomes. In 1963, Shu Chün Teng named it Pyropolyporus fomentarius and these names are considered obligate synonyms, that is, different names for the same species based on a single description or specimen. In addition to the synonyms, there are a number of taxonomic synonyms, whereby names have been described as separate species. The species is known as the tinder fungus, hoof fungus, tinder polypore. Fomes fomentarius has a body of between 5 and 45 centimetres across,3 and 25 cm wide and 2 and 25 cm thick. While typically shaped like a hoof, it can also be more bracket-like with an umbonate attachment to the substrate. The species typically has broad, concentric ridges, with a blunt, the flesh is hard and fibrous, and a cinnamon brown colour. The upper surface is tough, bumpy, hard and woody, varying in colour, the margin is whitish during periods of growth. The hard crust is from 1 to 2 mm thick, the underside has round pores of a cream colour when new, maturing to brown, though they darken when handled. The pores are circular, and there are 2–3 per millimetre, the tubes are 2 to 7 mm long and a rusty brown colour. The colouration and size of the body can vary based on where the specimen has grown
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Hymenium
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The hymenium is the tissue layer on the hymenophore of a fungal fruiting body where the cells develop into basidia or asci, which produce spores. In some species all of the cells of the hymenium develop into basidia or asci, cystidia are often important for microscopic identification. The subhymenium consists of the hyphae from which the cells of the hymenium grow, beneath which is the hymenophoral trama. The position of the hymenium is traditionally the first characteristic used in the classification and identification of mushrooms, below are some examples of the diverse types which exist among the macroscopic Basidiomycota and Ascomycota. In agarics the hymenium is on the faces of the gills. In boletes it is in a mass of downward-pointing tubes. In stinkhorns it develops internally and then is exposed in the form of a foul-smelling gel, in cup fungi, it is on the concave surface of the cup. In teeth fungi, it grows on the outside of tooth-like spines, régis Courtecuisse, Bernard Duhem, Guide des champignons de France et dEurope
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Hexagonia (fungus)
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Hexagonia is a genus of poroid fungi in the family Polyporaceae. The genus has a distribution, especially in tropical regions. As of October 2016, Index Fungorum accepts 41 species in Hexagonia, Hexagonia amplexens Pat, Hexagonia angulata Lloyd Hexagonia annamitica Pat. Hexagonia applanata Lloyd Hexagonia assaortina Sacc, Hexagonia bartlettii Massee Hexagonia bicolor McAlpine Hexagonia bivalvis Bres. Hexagonia burchellii Lloyd Hexagonia caliginosa Lloyd Hexagonia caperata Murrill Hexagonia casuarinae Pat, Hexagonia cucullata Murrill – Cameroon Hexagonia culmicola Niemelä & Kotir. Hexagonia dermatiphora Lloyd Hexagonia fioriana Sacc, Hexagonia fuscoglabra Lloyd Hexagonia heteropora Imazeki Hexagonia hydnoides M. Fidalgo Hexagonia leprosa Fr. – Pernambuco Hexagonia mirabilis Lloyd Hexagonia olivacea Lloyd Hexagonia phaeopora Pat, – Africa Hexagonia purpurascens Murrill Hexagonia retropicta Lloyd Hexagonia reyesii Pat. – New South Wales Hexagonia tenuiformis Murrill Hexagonia tenuis Fr, – Africa, Asia, South America Hexagonia umbrinella Fr. Hexagonia umbrosa Lloyd Hexagonia velutina Pat, Hexagonia vesparia Ryvarden – Australia Hexagonia warburgiana Teixeira Hexagonia wightii Fr. Hexagonia zambeziana Torrend Hexagonia in Index Fungorum Media related to Hexagonia at Wikimedia Commons
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Chlamydospore
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A chlamydospore is the thick-walled big resting spore of several kinds of fungi, including Ascomycota such as Candida, Basidiomycota such as Panus. and various Mortierellales species. It is the life-stage which survives in unfavourable conditions, such as dry or hot seasons, chlamydospores are usually dark-coloured, spherical, and have a smooth surface. They are multicellular, the cells being connected by pores in septae between cells, chlamydospores are a result of asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction. Teliospores are special kind of chlamydospores of rusts and smuts, conidium Teliospore Zygospore Resting spore The chlamydospores of Candida albicans, Chlamydospore development
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Conidium
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Conidia, sometimes termed asexual chlamydospores, or chlamydoconidia are asexual, non-motile spores of a fungus, from the Greek word for dust, konis. They are also called mitospores due to the way they are generated through the process of mitosis. The two new cells are genetically identical to the haploid parent, and can develop into new organisms if conditions are favorable. Asexual reproduction in Ascomycetes is by the formation of conidia, which are borne on specialized stalks called conidiophores, the morphology of these specialized conidiophores is often distinctive of a specific species and can therefore be used in identification of the species. The terms microconidia and macroconidia are sometimes used, a conidium may form germ tubes and/or conidial anastomosis tubes in specific conditions. These two are some of the hyphae that are formed by fungal conidia. The germ tubes will grow to form the hyphae and fungal mycelia, the conidial anastomosis tubes are morphologically and physiologically distinct from germ tubes. After conidia are induced to form conidial anastomosis tubes, they grow homing toward each other, once fusion happens, the nuclei can pass through fused CATs. These are events of fungal growth and not sexual reproduction. Fusion between these cells seems to be important for some fungi during early stages of colony establishment, the production of these cells has been suggested to occur in 73 different species of fungi. Conidiogenesis is an important mechanism of spread of plant pathogens, one of these structures is called a conidioma. Two important types of conidiomata, distinguished by their form, are, pycnidia, which are flask-shaped, and acervuli, pycnidial conidiomata or pycnidia form in the fungal tissue itself, and are shaped like a bulging vase. The spores are released through an opening at the apex. Mostly they develop a layer of relatively short conidiophores which then produce masses of spores. The increasing pressure leads to the splitting of the epidermis and cuticle, Conidia are always present in the air, but levels fluctuate from day to day and with the seasons. An average person inhales 40 conidia per hour, Conidia are often the method by which some normally harmless but heat-tolerating, common fungi establish infection in certain types of severely immunocompromised patients. Their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the fungus, arthroconidium Asexual reproduction Ascocarp Basidiocarp Chlamydospore Gemma Phialide Conidia
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Heterobasidion
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Heterobasidion is a genus of basidiomycetes in the family Bondarzewiaceae. Species in this genus include forest decay fungi that may be pathogenic and cause tree decline, the genus can be identified from its shelf-like polyporous fruiting bodies. Mating studies in the twentieth century and genetic studies in the early twenty-first century have described several new species. As a result, two former Heterobasidion species, H. annosum and H. insulare, have expanded into species clusters. Heterobasidion annosum sensu lato is a collection of species that cause Annosum root rot to forest trees across the Northern Hemisphere and these species can be saprotrophic or necrotrophic, colonizing decayed heartwood or live roots causing mortality. Several tree species have been identified as hosts but evergreen trees such as pine are most affected, Annosum root rot is a serious issue to forest health due to tree mortality, decreased lumber volume and quality, and carbon sequestration. This species cluster is one of the most intensively studied forest pathogens, Heterobasidion annosum sensu lato includes five species, based on host preference, genetics, morphology, and location. Sexual mating tests have identified three inter-sterility groups, P, S, and F, named after their chief hosts, the five species are H. abietinum, H. annosum senso stricto, H. irregulare, H. occidentale, and H. parviporum. Genetic analysis have demonstrated the North American species, H. irregulare and H. occidentale, are distinct from each other, the H. insulare complex is a taxon of seven Heterobasidion species present in Eastern Asia and India. H. insulare is a decay fungus that is rarely pathogenic. Host species are logs and stumps of evergreen forest species including pine, fir, cedar, some species can be easily differentiated from H. annosum senso lato due to the red colouration on the top of the fruiting body. Once considered a single species intersterility trials, genetic, and morphological studies have broken it into six distinct species, sexual mating tests have identified four inter-sterility groups, N, T, Y, and Z. The seven species are H. orientale, H. ecrustosum, H. insulare sensu typi, H. linzhiense, H. australe, H. amyloideum, Heterobasidion araucariae is a saprotrophic decay fungi found in Australia, Oceania, and may be present in Indochina. While not considered pathogenic it can help decay logs and stumps of Agathis, Araucaria, there are three isolates that have been proposed as new species but further description may be necessary. Heterobasidion pahangense Corner Heterobasidion rutilantiforme Stalpers Heterobasidion arbitrarium Corner Heterobasidion in Index Fungorum
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Fomitopsis pinicola
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Fomitopsis pinicola, is a stem decay fungus. Its conk, commonly known as the red-belt conk, is a fungus of the genus Fomitopsis. The species is common throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere and it is a decay fungus that serves as a small-scale disturbance agent in coastal rainforest ecosystems. It influences stand structure and succession in temperate rainforests and it performs essential nutrient cycling functions in forests. Cap is hoof-shaped or triangular, hard and tough texture, up to 30–40 x 25 x 10 cm and its surface is more or less smooth, at first orange-yellow with a white margin, later dark reddish to brown and then frequently with orange margin. The pore surface is yellow to leather-brown, 3–4 pores per mm. It grows as thick shelves on live and dead coniferous or deciduous trees, the fruiting body of Fomitopsis pinicola is called the conk. It is a woody, pileate fruiting body with pores lined with basidia on its underside, as in other polypores, the fruiting body is perennial with a new layer of pores produced each year on the bottom of the old pores. The pores are whitish when young and become somewhat brownish in age and this mushroom is inedible due to its woody texture, but it is useful as tinder. Most of the decay in mature forests that results from this fungus does not interfere with the normal growth. It is classified as a brown rot, which primarily degrades cellulose in tree stands, wood impacted by this fungus may become more brittle and prone to breakage in high winds, and cannot be used for pulp production. This species requires exposed wood of wounds for entry, and continue their decay after the tree dies, the fruiting bodies of the fungus disperse airborne spores, but the actual degradation of the wood is by the threadlike vegetative part of the fungus inside the trees. The fungus can occur anywhere on roots or the stem, but is most common low on the bole and this stem decay fungi is found on live conifer trees in southeast Alaska such as Western hemlock, Mountain hemlock, White spruce, Lutz spruce and Sitka spruce. The trees stem decay is caused by the fungi when it invades and colonizes in the wood of living trees and decomposes the wood before the tree is dead. This fungus is found on dead conifers, but can also be observed growing on large stem wounds, broken tops. In mature forests, these stem decay fungi cause enormous annual wood volume loss of Alaska’s major tree species, approximately one-third of the old-growth timber board foot volume in Southeast Alaska is defective, largely due to decay from this type of fungus. Conversely, there is very little decay in young-growth stands unless there is prevalent wounding from commercial thinning activities, wind damage and this stem decay creates canopy gaps, influence stand structure and succession, increase biodiversity, and enhance wildlife habitat. The fungus also preforms essential nutrient cycling functions in forests by decomposing stems, branches, roots
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Parasitism
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In biology/ecology, parasitism is a non-mutual relationship between species, where one species, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred primarily to organisms visible to the naked eye, Parasites can be microparasites, which are typically smaller, such as protozoa, viruses, and bacteria. Examples of parasites include the plants mistletoe and cuscuta, and animals such as hookworms, unlike predators, parasites typically do not kill their host, are generally much smaller than their host, and will often live in or on their host for an extended period. Both are special cases of consumer-resource interactions, Parasites show a high degree of specialization, and reproduce at a faster rate than their hosts. Classic examples of parasitism include interactions between vertebrate hosts and tapeworms, flukes, the Plasmodium species, and fleas, parasitism differs from the parasitoid relationship in that parasitoids generally kill their hosts. Parasites reduce host biological fitness by general or specialized pathology, such as parasitic castration and impairment of secondary sex characteristics, Parasites increase their own fitness by exploiting hosts for resources necessary for their survival, e. g. food, water, heat, habitat, and transmission. Although parasitism applies unambiguously to many cases, it is part of a continuum of types of interactions between species, rather than an exclusive category, in many cases, it is difficult to demonstrate harm to the host. In others, there may be no apparent specialization on the part of the parasite, coined in English in 1611, the word parasitism comes from the Greek παρά + σιτισμός feeding, fattening. Parasites are classified based on their interactions with their hosts and on their life cycles, an obligate parasite is totally dependent on the host to complete its life cycle, while a facultative parasite is not. A direct parasite has one host while an indirect parasite has multiple hosts. For indirect parasites, there always be a definitive host. Parasites that live on the outside of the host, either on the skin or the outgrowths of the skin, are called ectoparasites and those that live inside the host are called endoparasites. Endoparasites can exist in one of two forms, intercellular parasites or intracellular parasites, intracellular parasites, such as protozoa, bacteria or viruses, tend to rely on a third organism, which is generally known as the carrier or vector. The vector does the job of transmitting them to the host, an example of this interaction is the transmission of malaria, caused by a protozoan of the genus Plasmodium, to humans by the bite of an anopheline mosquito. Those parasites living in a position, being half-ectoparasites and half-endoparasites, are called mesoparasites. An epiparasite is one that feeds on another parasite and this relationship is also sometimes referred to as hyperparasitism, exemplified by a protozoan living in the digestive tract of a flea living on a dog. Social parasites take advantage of interactions between members of social organisms such as ants, termites, and bumblebees, an extreme example of social parasitism is the ant species of Tetramorium inquilinum of the Alps, which spend their whole lives on the back of Tetramorium host ants. With tiny and deprecated bodies they have evolved for one single task, if they fall off, they most likely would not have the strength to climb back on top of another ant, and eventually they will die
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Saprotrophic nutrition
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Saprotrophic nutrition /sæprəˈtrɒfɪk, -proʊ-/ or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of dead or decayed organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs or heterotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi, saprotrophic microscopic fungi are sometimes called saprobes, saprotrophic plants or bacterial flora are called saprophytes. The process is most often facilitated through the transport of such materials through endocytosis within the internal mycelium. For example, usage distinctions can be based on macroscopic swallowing of detritus versus microscopic lysis of detritus. A facultative saprophyte appears on stressed or dying plants and may combine with the live pathogens, as matter decomposes within a medium in which a saprotroph is residing, the saprotroph breaks such matter down into its composites. Proteins are broken down into their amino acid composites through the breaking of bonds by proteases. Lipids are broken down into fatty acids and glycerol by lipases, starch is broken down into pieces of simple disaccharides by amylases. These products are re-absorbed into the hypha through the wall via endocytosis. This facilitates the passage of materials throughout the organism and allows for growth and, if necessary. In order for an organism to facilitate optimal growth and repair, favourable conditions. Presence of oxygen, Very few saprotrophic organisms can endure anaerobic conditions as evidenced by their growth media such as water or soil. Neutral-acidic pH, The condition of neutral or mildly acidic conditions under pH7 are required, low-medium temperature, The majority of saprotrophic organisms require temperatures between 1 °C and 35 °C, with optimum growth occurring at 25 °C. The majority of nutrients taken in by such organisms must be able to provide carbon, proteins, vitamins and in some cases, ions. In terms of nitrogen-rich sources, saprotrophs require combined protein for the creation of proteins, which is facilitated by the absorption of amino acids, although both ions and vitamins are rare, thiamine or ions such as potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium aid the growth of the mycelium. Clegg, C. J. Mackean, D. G, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis group,2014
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Genus
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A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology. In the hierarchy of classification, genus comes above species. In binomial nomenclature, the name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. Felis catus and Felis silvestris are two species within the genus Felis, Felis is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist, the standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. Moreover, genera should be composed of units of the same kind as other genera. The term comes from the Latin genus, a noun form cognate with gignere, linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum, but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort is considered the founder of the modern concept of genera. The scientific name of a genus may be called the name or generic epithet. It plays a role in binomial nomenclature, the system of naming organisms. The rules for the names of organisms are laid down in the Nomenclature Codes. The standard way of scientifically describing species and other lower-ranked taxa is by binomial nomenclature, the generic name forms its first half. For example, the gray wolfs binomial name is Canis lupus, with Canis being the name shared by the wolfs close relatives. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany. Especially with these names, when the generic name is known from context. Because animals are typically only grouped within subspecies, it is written as a trinomen with a third name. Dog breeds, meanwhile, are not scientifically distinguished, there are several divisions of plant species and therefore their infraspecific names generally include contractions explaining the relation. For example, the genus Hibiscus includes hundreds of other species apart from the Rose of Sharon or common garden hibiscus, Rose of Sharon doesnt have subspecies but has cultivars that carry desired traits, such as the bright white H. syriaca Diana. Hawaiian hibiscus, meanwhile, includes several separate species, since not all botanists agree on the divisions or names between species, it is common to specify the source of the name using author abbreviations
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Lignin
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Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form important structural materials in the support tissues of vascular plants and some algae. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity. Chemically, lignins are cross-linked phenolic polymers and he named the substance “lignine”, which is derived from the Latin word lignum, meaning wood. It is one of the most abundant organic polymers on Earth, lignin constitutes 30% of non-fossil organic carbon and 20-35% of the dry mass of wood. The Carboniferous Period is in part defined by the evolution of lignin, the composition of lignin varies from species to species. An example of composition from a sample is 63. 4% carbon,5. 9% hydrogen,0. 7% ash. As a biopolymer, lignin is unusual because of its heterogeneity and its most commonly noted function is the support through strengthening of wood in vascular plants. Global commercial production of lignin is around 1.1 million metric tons per year and is used in a range of low volume, niche applications where the form. Lignin fills the spaces in the wall between cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin components, especially in vascular and support tissues, xylem tracheids, vessel elements. It is covalently linked to hemicellulose and therefore cross-links different plant polysaccharides, conferring mechanical strength to the cell wall and it is particularly abundant in compression wood but scarce in tension wood, which are types of reaction wood. Lignin plays a part in conducting water in plant stems. The polysaccharide components of plant cell walls are highly hydrophilic and thus permeable to water, the crosslinking of polysaccharides by lignin is an obstacle for water absorption to the cell wall. Thus, lignin makes it possible for the vascular tissue to conduct water efficiently. Lignin is present in all plants, but not in bryophytes. However, it is present in red algae, which seems to suggest that the ancestor of plants. This would suggest that its function was structural, it plays this role in the red alga Calliarthron. Another possibility is that the lignins in red algae and in plants are result of convergent evolution, lignin plays a significant role in the carbon cycle, sequestering atmospheric carbon into the living tissues of woody perennial vegetation. Lignin is one of the most slowly decomposing components of dead vegetation, the resulting soil humus, in general, holds nutrients onto its surface, and hence increases its cation exchange capacity and moisture retention, hence it increases the productivity of soil
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Cellulose
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Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the cell wall of green plants, many forms of algae. Some species of bacteria secrete it to form biofilms, Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer on Earth. The cellulose content of cotton fiber is 90%, that of wood is 40–50%, Cellulose is mainly used to produce paperboard and paper. Smaller quantities are converted into a variety of derivative products such as cellophane. Conversion of cellulose from energy crops into biofuels such as ethanol is under investigation as an alternative fuel source. Cellulose for industrial use is mainly obtained from wood pulp and cotton, some animals, particularly ruminants and termites, can digest cellulose with the help of symbiotic micro-organisms that live in their guts, such as Trichonympha. In humans, cellulose acts as a bulking agent for feces and is often referred to as a dietary fiber. Cellulose was discovered in 1838 by the French chemist Anselme Payen, Cellulose was used to produce the first successful thermoplastic polymer, celluloid, by Hyatt Manufacturing Company in 1870. Production of rayon from cellulose began in the 1890s and cellophane was invented in 1912, hermann Staudinger determined the polymer structure of cellulose in 1920. The compound was first chemically synthesized in 1992, by Kobayashi, Cellulose has no taste, is odorless, is hydrophilic with the contact angle of 20–30 degrees, is insoluble in water and most organic solvents, is chiral and is biodegradable. It was shown to melt at 467 °C in 2016 and it can be broken down chemically into its glucose units by treating it with concentrated mineral acids at high temperature. Cellulose is derived from D-glucose units, which condense through β-glycosidic bonds and this linkage motif contrasts with that for α-glycosidic bonds present in starch and glycogen. This confers tensile strength in cell walls, where cellulose microfibrils are meshed into a polysaccharide matrix, compared to starch, cellulose is also much more crystalline. Whereas starch undergoes a crystalline to amorphous transition when heated beyond 60–70 °C in water, cellulose requires a temperature of 320 °C, several different crystalline structures of cellulose are known, corresponding to the location of hydrogen bonds between and within strands. Natural cellulose is cellulose I, with structures Iα and Iβ, Cellulose produced by bacteria and algae is enriched in Iα while cellulose of higher plants consists mainly of Iβ. Cellulose in regenerated cellulose fibers is cellulose II, the conversion of cellulose I to cellulose II is irreversible, suggesting that cellulose I is metastable and cellulose II is stable. With various chemical treatments it is possible to produce the structures cellulose III, many properties of cellulose depend on its chain length or degree of polymerization, the number of glucose units that make up one polymer molecule
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Wood-decay fungus
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A wood-decay fungus is any species of fungus that digests moist wood, causing it to rot. Some species of fungi attack dead wood, such as brown rot. Fungi that not only grow on wood but actually cause it to decay, are called lignicolous fungi, various lignicolous fungi consume wood in various ways, for example, some attack the carbohydrates in wood and some others decay lignin. The rate of decay of materials in various climates can be estimated by empirical models. Wood-decay fungi can be classified according to the type of decay that they cause, the best-known types are brown rot, soft rot, and white rot. Each produce different enzymes, can degrade different plant materials, the residual products of decomposition from fungal action have variable pH, solubility and redox potentials. Over time this residue will become incorporated in the soil and sediment, brown-rot fungi break down hemicellulose and cellulose. Cellulose is broken down by hydrogen peroxide that is produced during the breakdown of hemicellulose, because hydrogen peroxide is a small molecule, it can diffuse rapidly through the wood, leading to a decay that is not confined to the direct surroundings of the fungal hyphae. As a result of type of decay, the wood shrinks, shows a brown discoloration. The fungi of certain types removes cellulose compounds from wood and hence the wood becomes brown colour, brown rot in a dry, crumbly condition is sometimes incorrectly referred to as dry rot in general. The term brown rot replaced the use of the term dry rot, as wood must be damp to decay. Dry rot is a name for certain species of brown-rot fungus. Brown-rot fungi of particular importance include Serpula lacrymans, Fibroporia vaillantii, and Coniophora puteana. Other brown-rot fungi include the sulfur shelf, Phaeolus schweinitzii, brown-rot fungal decay is characterised by extensive demethylation of lignins whereas white-rot tends to produce low yields of molecules with demethylated functional groups. Soft-rot fungi secrete cellulase from their hyphae, an enzyme that breaks down cellulose in the wood and this leads to the formation of microscopic cavities inside the wood, and sometimes to a discoloration and cracking pattern similar to brown rot. Soft-rot fungi need fixed nitrogen in order to synthesize enzymes, which they obtain either from the wood or from the environment, examples of soft-rot-causing fungi are Chaetomium, Ceratocystis, and Kretzschmaria deusta. Soft-rot fungi are able to colonise conditions that are too hot and they can also decompose woods with high levels of compounds that are resistant to biological attack. Bark in woody plants contains a concentration of tannin, which is difficult for fungi to decompose
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Carboniferous
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The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Permian Period,298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means coal-bearing and derives from the Latin words carbō and ferō, and was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822. Based on a study of the British rock succession, it was the first of the system names to be employed. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial life was established by the Carboniferous period. Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of one branch would eventually evolve into amniotes. Arthropods were also common, and many were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down, the atmospheric content of oxygen also reached their highest levels in geological history during the period, 35% compared with 21% today, allowing terrestrial invertebrates to evolve to great size. A major marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred in the middle of the period, the later half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. In the United States the Carboniferous is usually broken into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods, the Silesian is roughly contemporaneous with the late Mississippian Serpukhovian plus the Pennsylvanian. In Britain the Dinantian is traditionally known as the Carboniferous Limestone, the Namurian as the Millstone Grit, and the Westphalian as the Coal Measures and Pennant Sandstone. There was also a drop in south polar temperatures, southern Gondwanaland was glaciated throughout the period and these conditions apparently had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush swamps, later to become coal, flourished to within 30 degrees of the northernmost glaciers. Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major extinction, one that hit crinoids. This sea level drop and the unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian subperiod from the Pennsylvanian subperiod. This happened about 323 million years ago, at the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation, the Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building, as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe along the present line of eastern North America, in the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China, the Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an O. There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—Panthalassa and Paleo-Tethys, which was inside the O in the Carboniferous Pangaea, other minor oceans were shrinking and eventually closed - Rheic Ocean, the small, shallow Ural Ocean and Proto-Tethys Ocean
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Chamaecyparis thyoides
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It is one of two species of Chamaecyparis found in North America. C. thyoides resides on the East Coast and C. lawsoniana can be found on the West Coast, the trees are associated with a wide variety of other wetland species because of their wide north-south range. The remaining populations are now mostly in remote locations that would be difficult to harvest. Chamaecyparis thyoides grows within 20 and 100 m of the coastline and less than 50 m above sea level along much of the East Coast, Rare populations grow in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, where the tree may be found up to 460 m above sea level. Altered fire regimes, logging, and draining of wetlands outside of the few protected areas have all contributed to the decrease in the size. The tree is listed as Rare in Georgia and New York, of Special Concern in Maine, C. thyoides lives almost exclusively in freshwater wetlands and are considered an obligate wetland species. It prefers habitats where the soil is saturated with water at least during the majority of the growing season, the soils in these regions have a thick organic layer, often classified as a histic surface horizon, with sandy material at greater depths and poor drainage. Atlantic white cedar wetlands are acidic and there is little oxygen stored in the soil because water has displaced the air, plants that live in these environments must be specially adapted to such conditions. Though the tree is not listed as threatened, Atlantic white cedar wetlands are considered a threatened ecosystem. Red maple and black gum trees are found in the canopy along with Atlantic white cedar throughout its range. Sphagnum mosses also often grow in these wetlands, the caterpillar of the Hessels Hairstreak butterfly feed exclusively on C. thyoides, where its green color helps it to be camouflaged. The trees themselves grow on hummocks, small mounds, with water pooling in the depressions surrounding them and this keep the tree from being underwater year-round and helps to protect from floods. The tree benefits from periodic low-intensity fires which expose seedlings to sunlight and limit competition with other canopy flora, too frequent or intense fires or flooding are damaging to seedlings stored in the top layer of soil and full-grown trees. The leaves are scale-like, 2–4 mm long, and produced in opposite pairs on somewhat flattened shoots. The tree is bare of branches for 3/4 of the trunk height, the seed cones are globose, 4–9 mm diameter, with 6-10 scales, green or purple, maturing to brown in 5–7 months after pollination. The pollen cones are yellow but turn brown as the tree matures,1. 5–3 mm long and 1–2 mm broad, the tree begins bearing seeds at 4–5 years, but does not reach full maturity and start producing cones until it is 10-20 year olds. Seeds are dispersed nearly every year and travel by wind, height and diameter of the tree increase steadily until the tree is 50 years old, at which point height growth slows. Both height and diameter no longer increase once the tree is 100 years old, stands are generally all younger than 200 years, though some trees as old as a 1000 years have been reported
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Bridgeoporus
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Bridgeoporus is a fungal genus in the family Polyporaceae. A monotypic genus, it contains the single polypore species Bridgeoporus nobilissimus, commonly known both as the noble polypore and the fuzzy Sandozi, this fungus produces large fruit bodies that have been found to weigh up to 130 kilograms. The upper surface of the body has a fuzzy or fibrous texture that often supports the growth of algae, bryophytes. This species is found in the Pacific Northwest region of North America where it grows on large specimens of noble fir, Pacific silver fir, Bridgeoporus nobilissimus causes a brown rot in its tree hosts. Genetic analysis shows that the fungus is more prevalent than fruit body distribution indicates, Bridgeoporus nobilissimus was named for William Bridge Cooke, who originally described the species as Oxyporus nobilissimus in 1949. The fungus was discovered in Clackamas County, Oregon, in 1943 by brothers Ali, foresters called the species Fomes fuzzii-sandozii, referring to the collectors and the fuzzy surface texture of the conk. Several collections were made in Oregon and Washington in subsequent years, a large specimen was collected in Lewis County, Washington in 1946 that weighed about 300 pounds and measured 56 inches by 37 inches. Cooke learned of the fungus in 1948 while visiting Daniel Elliot Stuntz and this fruit body served as the type collection. Species of genus Oxyporus cause white rot in their host trees, Cooke placed the fungus in this genus by despite not knowing definitively what type of rot it caused, he considered it to be closely related to Oxyporus populinus. In 1955, polypore specialist Josiah Lincoln Lowe transferred O. nobilissimus to Fomes, in particular, genus Oxyporus features true cystidia arising from the subhymenium, whereas B. nobilissimus has pseudocystidia. Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial small-subunit rDNA sequences suggests that B. nobilissimus, the hymenochaetoid clade includes wood-decaying species previously classified variously in the families Corticiaceae, Polyporaceae and Stereaceae. Bridgeoporus nobilissimus has perennial, imbricate, sessile fruit bodies that measure 30–140 cm by 25–95 cm by 30–100 cm, from 1966 to 1990, this species was designated the largest pore fungus in the Guinness Book of World Records. Three fruit body shapes are associated with the fungus, depending largely on the location of the fruiting on the host tree. The cap surface of fruit bodies are covered with a dense mat of white mycelial fibers that in age darken in color. Although the surface is brown or darker, it may appear green due to epiphytic associations with algae such as Coccomyxa or Charicium species. Bryophytes or sometimes vascular plants grow on the surface of the conk. The texture of the body is fibrous, it is rubbery and tough when fresh. The pores on the underside of the body are round
