Christina Beimforde

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at University of Göttingen

The order Mycocaliciales (Ascomycota) comprises fungal species with diverse, often highly specialized substrate ecologies. Particularly within the genus Chaenothecopsis , many species exclusively occur on fresh and solidified resins or other exudates of vascular plants. In New Zealand, the only previously known species growing on plant exudate is C...

Lichens are important in many modern terrestrial ecosystems, but their fossil record has been very sparse. This has limited the chances for finding any evidence of their interactions with animals in past ecosystems. Recently, the fossil record of lichens has improved significantly with the discovery of numerous new inclusions from European Paleogen...

Resinicolous fungi constitute a heterogeneous assemblage of fungi that live on fresh and solidified plant resins. The genus Sarea includes, according to current knowledge, two species, S. resinae and S. difformis . In contrast to other resinicolous discomycetes, which are placed in genera also including non-resinicolous species, Sarea species only...

Marine microorganisms trapped in amber are extremely rare in the fossil record, and the few existing inclusions recovered so far originate from very few pieces of Cretaceous amber from France. Marine macroscopic inclusions are also very rare and were recently described from Cretaceous Burmese amber and Early Miocene Mexican amber. Whereas a coastal...

Amber is fossilised plant resin. It can be used to provide insights into the terrestrial conditions at the time the original resin was exuded. Amber research thus can inform many aspects of palaeontology, from the recovery and description of enclosed fossil organisms (biological inclusions) to attempts at reconstruction of past climates and environ...

Terrestrial ecosystems of the long-isolated former Gondwanan landmass of New Zealand are hotspots of modern global biodiversity, based on the level of endemism and distinctiveness of the biota. However, little is known of the evolutionary history of the rarely preserved but diverse, distinctive, fragile, mainly soft-bodied organisms such as arthrop...

Ascomycetes specialised to live on hardened plant exudates occur worldwide, but the number of species so far described is relatively small (c.30). Particularly within the genus Chaenothecopsis (Ascomycota: Mycocaliciales), many species produce their ascomata on hardened but still relatively fresh outpourings of conifer resin or angiosperm exudate....

Conifers of the endemic species Araucaria humboldtensis on Mont Humboldt in New Caledonia exhibit extensive resin exudation. The resin flows of these threatened trees are here shown to be induced by two beetle species, which bore into branches and branchlets, leading to abundant outpouring of resin, which gradually solidifies into often drop-shaped...

The world’s sole ‘parasitic’ gymnosperm Parasitaxus usta (Podocarpaceae) is endemic to the island of Grande Terre, New Caledonia. It is a threatened species because of its limited geographic range and progressing habitat fragmentation. Here, we report a novel scale insect outbreak on a Parasitaxus sub-population from Monts Dzumac in the southern pa...

A novel species of ascomycetes is described from resin of Araucaria humboldtensis on Mont Humboldt in New Caledonia. The fungus is placed in the new genus Resinogalea, with the species name R. humboldtensis. It has only been found growing on semi-hardened resin flows on branches of its endemic and endangered conifer host. The morphology and anatomy...

A new resinicolous species of the genus Chaenothecopsis (Ascomycota, Mycocaliciales) is described from resin of Agathis ovata in New Caledonia. Chaenothecopsis neocaledonica sp. nov. is the first mycocalicioid fungus to be described from the exudates of Southern Hemisphere conifers of the family Araucariaceae. It is easily distinguished from relate...

The phylum Ascomycota is by far the largest group in the fungal kingdom. Ecologically important mutualistic associations such as mycorrhizae and lichens have evolved in this group, which are regarded as key innovations that supported the evolution of land plants. Only a few attempts have been made to date the origin of Ascomycota lineages by using...

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Resin protects wounded trees from microbial in-fection, but also provides a suitable substrate for the growth of highly specialized fungi. Chaenothecopsis proliferatus is described growing on resin of Cunninghamia lanceolata from Hunan Province, China. The new fungus is compared with extant species and two new fossil specimens from Eocene Baltic an...

Amber can be described as occurring in ‘bursts’ during earth history, particularly in the Late Triassic, the Early and mid Cretaceous and the Eocene to Miocene, with many large deposits found worldwide. The causes of these unusual deposits are unclear and there are several theories surrounding these extensive outpourings of fossil resin. There are...

The anamorphic fungal genus Monotosporella (Ascomycota, Sordariomycetes) has been reco-vered from a piece of Early Eocene Indian amber, as well as from the surface of extant resin flows in New Caledonia. The fossil fungus was obtained from the Tarkeshwar Lignite Mine of Gujarat State, western India, and was part of the biota of an early tropical an...

Amber can be defined as cross-polymerised fossil plant resin. There are many conflicting ideas about which species may have produced it and under what conditions in such large amounts. Numerous chemical studies show that amber, particularly the older fossil resins, was predominantly produced by coniferous trees, with much smaller quantities being p...

The development of mycorrhizal associations is considered a key innovation that enabled vascular plants to extensively colonize terrestrial habitats. Here, we present the first known fossil ectomycorrhizas from an angiosperm forest. Our fossils are preserved in a 52 million-yr-old piece of amber from the Tadkeshwar Lignite Mine of Gujarat State, we...

Amber can be considered as a window into the past allowing insights into the palaeoecology of Mesozoic and Cenozoic woodlands. Insects, spiders, fragments of higher plants and even small vertebrates were trapped by resins of conifers and angiosperms of the ancient “amber forests”.