Pink fungus on burnt reeds in summer.

Probably I won't get any identifications for this one, but it is a very beautiful encounter of a pink-coloured yeast fungus growing a week after a dense population of reeds was on fire. Furthermore, this was found during the arid and dry summer here on our Mediterranean Islands. I pinned it down to Rhodotorula sp. and I am cultivating it on a few agars. I don't know if you can suggest to me some literature about it. Very beautiful, and I could not stop taking pics both in situ and under the microscope.

Hi Thorben.... that's a very interesting suggestion and I will study a bit more your suggestion. Many thanks! The budding of propagules (also seen in the link you provided) really made me believe it was a yeast fungus, and then, there is even a group of pink yeasts.

I have inoculated some plates so I will report that too.

The cylindrical particles seem to cut off from the tips of the main mycelium (Blastogenesis?) but not sure about the rounded propagules. They seem to bud off singly from any part of the mycelium body ?I I will study a fresh mount under the microscope tomorrow. I apply less force on the tape.

Somehow, I didn't see the condiogenesis as in Nematogonum under the stereomicroscope (like the pic below) but I will recheck more carefully tmrw.

Below is an image in the x100 magnification maybe it is helpful. There are millions of these rounded spores but I cannot see a distinct conidiaphore

Enhanced image try to show if rounded spores are budding off from mycelium. They do bud fro meach other!

Another instance which seems to show budding (but it maybe just a spore resting on the edge of the main mycelium ?!)

Good morning. I had time to study this pink fungus and the first surprise was its very fast growth on some agar. The fastest growth was on Oat meal agar, then slightly less on Malt Extract and PDA, not abundant on Yeast&Mould Agar and almost nothing on Czapek DOX. The growth on Oat Agar in just three days was impressive!!! The growth was also peculiar, there was rapid vegetative filamentous growth at the central parts of the plate then sporulation took place at the rim and even outside the plate in gross amounts, as if induced by air. I haven't experienced anything like that before.

The cultures have an apple-like fruity scent which is somewhat pleasant.

Now with regards to the sporangiophores/conidiophores, I fail to see specialized organs. The rounded spores are arranged on the mycelium as a branched arbuscular form. I could notice this by means of some growth on the plastic lid of the Petri dishes. In other instances, I could see special narrow terminal mycelia which had repeated serial constrictions and possible the result of the rounded conidia. Sometimes these are seen as short chains since the constrictions leading to separation are sometimes not consecutive (one after the other one by one) but simultaneous as a group.

Hope this new observation can lead us to somewhere!

thanks thorben

OK folks, I think I have narrowed it down to Neurospora! I see what literature I can find on the genus (or related genera)

This is relevant

" David Perkins (Stanford University)

made global collections of Neurospora
species, mostly from burned vegetation,
and developed a method of identifying
the wild collected strains based on unambiguous fertility tests with specially
developed tester strains"

"

Ramesh Maheshwari’s group at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore was
the first to have systematically unravelled the Neurospora life cycle outside
the laboratory, in a sugar-cane field2

"

Yes we are there Neurospora/Chrysonilia (teleomorph/anamorph)

But now I have to get rid of the cultures asap:

"In the school or university laboratory where many students may be cultivating fungi at the same time these fungi can cause lab-wide epidemics, ruining every culture they contact. The best strategy is to discard all rapidly growing, pink, powdery cultures without opening them"

I don't think we will get farther than the genus name regards identification from a morphological approach unless there is some paper dealing with this in detail (I have not found anything good so far). GenBank is also overwhelmed with Neurospora accessions !!!

Thanks for your help, if you find further info on this , please share

Zitat von thorben96

Hi Steve,

very good preparation.

In your new pictures you can see nicely the formation of the conidia.

My first attention of Nematogonum is wrong and isn't similar.

Zitat von Steve_mt

OK folks, I think I have narrowed it down to Neurospora! I see what literature I can find on the genus (or related genera)

I think it is a good direction to look in Neurospora or similar genus.

In "The Genera of Hyphomycetes " i found the genus Chrysonilia with which you can also compare.

best regards,

Thorben

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I have not cultured that collection from old granulated coffee in a coffee maker, but the species on that specific substrate is Neurospora sitophila, so I was happy with that determination. The one on burnt reeds in the wild might be something different and more important to identify. Could be also N. sitophila but maybe its betterto send a sample for sequencing seeing that I cant find good literature to determine the species macroscopically.

I hope I have not ruined my home Lab because I am reading how a bad contaminant it is -

See here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339105562_Neurospora_sitophila_in_indoor_environment_of_buildings