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Mycology - Science topic

Explore the latest questions and answers in Mycology, and find Mycology experts.
Questions related to Mycology
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hello, I want to publish a paper in microbiology or mycology field, any recommendation for free journals to publish my paper in it?
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I understand a glycerol stock for long-term preservation would be ideal, but how are working cultures generally stored? Mainly concerning Candida spp. isolates. A few references mention that they can be stored in SDA at room temperature, but how long?
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Hello, mainly storage in clinical laboratories in glycerol stocks, but for interesting fungi you can grow in reach media, than you can put in freezer for sporulation after you can collect spores and keep in dried conditions as long as you want.
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Hi everyone,
I want to ask your opinion about different ways to decrease average noise and standard deviation in our chromatograms which help us to improve selectivity and sensitivity of our LC-MS/MS and LOD and LOQ values as well.
I work on grain (mainly wheat and corn) mycotoxins in my lab, and usually after reconstituting my extracts with eluents, I keep them in fridge overnight to remove sediments.
I also use syringe filter as they have always been helpful in extraction process.
I will be more than happy to hear about your thought and other methods that you use in this way.
Warmest regards,
Nasim
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Dilute and shoot is the most inexpensive and straightforward analysis option that presents a noisy baseline therefore lower selectivity and sensitivity (Even if you choose the ms/ms).
For the best specificity, immunoaffinity SPE extraction of toxins (There are many products on the market, e.g R-biopharm) followed by ms to the n experiment is the best choice (at least MS2). Sensitivity therefore LOQ is adjustable within this procedure (By scaling up or down) but would be costly.
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Our Burkard 7 Day Volumetric Spore Sampler is not registering 10 litres/minute air according to the flow meter. The motor is running but the flow meter is showing no air coming in. A piece of kim wipe does hover at the orifice so some air is going in, but not enough. We have already replaced the motor, and tried sealing up any area where air could be leaking. Nothing is dirty or blocked. Has anyone experienced this issue?
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It is a very old question. Rachael Martin I am curious to know whether the issue was resolved. The question is still open, and no final response or acknowledgement exists.
Anyways, there could be a problem with the speed controller, low voltage (may be due to battery or direct solar) operation, or you are measuring the flow rate without putting the slide in place. Strangely, I recently encountered the last one myself.
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Hi, I am new to mycology, may I ask what's a fungal strain? how to identify a different fungal strain from the other? do i need to produce them in order to describe a species properly and how may i attempt to do so if it is necessary? I cant seem to find any reading material with clear explanation online, any of such reading materials will also be helpful. Thanks.
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Studying mushrooms on your own is really difficult because there is great variability within the same species, the best thing is to attend basic mycology courses and join a mycological association and study a lot in the books and handouts that they will recommend, at least 5 years to be able to identify any mushroom with certainty with the naked eye. If you want to recognize more, then you will have to dedicate yourself to microscopy. Mycology is a difficult and complex subject, you won't get anywhere alone.
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Dear colleagues, I am currently in a search of Q1-Q2 journal that is specialized on general mycology and is free of publication or any other charge. I would like to publish manuscripts on ecology of mycorrhizal and plant-associated fungi. Could you suggest any?
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McIlvanea
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Hi! Who can direct me by the culture medium the most advantageous for the isolation of fungi from the soil ( sabouraud or PDA)? 
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PDA is best medium for growing fungi
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I am new to the mycology world and have been looking for resources to learn general introductory information from. My project largely involves plant pathogens including Fusarium species. If you have any books, videos, online courses, etc that have helped your or your students' learning, please drop the titles/links here!
Thanks!
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Greetings,
As you live and study in the US, you have a great chance to reach many kinds of sources of mycology. Despite this, I recommend some useful references to you as mentioned below:
3. Studies in Mycology: https://www.studiesinmycology.org/
The book "Introduction to Fungi " is a great reference. Also, there are some specific books for Fusarium spp. I will send in a DM.
I hope this information can be helpful. Please let me know if you have more questions.
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Routine isolation and identification of aetiological agents of Superficial Mycoses is of utmost importance in a tropical, humid country densely populated compared with the available land area. For instance, Sri Lanka is ideal with a population of 22.16 million limited to a 65,610 km2 island. Interpretation of results in Mycology needs working experience: how to differentiate pathogens from contaminants depending on the site and the type of sample. Superficial lesions are more prone to contamination with environmental fungal spores. Working experience is essential to increase the accuracy and precision of mycology reports.
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Please read the article attached here. I have been doing surface disinfection for heavily soiled lesions to get rid of contaminants / commensals which may inhibit the growth of pathogens. Working experience is needed to avoid what you speculated that there would be no reason to culture the lesion. I did not come across any incident violating my speculations or postulates when I worked as a Medical Laboratory Technologist at the Department of Mycology, Medical Research Institute, Colombo 08, Sri Lanka, South Asia.
Did you understand? please try to learn from a technologist who is actively doing isolation and identification of aetiological agents of Superficial Mycoses and that would be the best way to understand this.
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Hi there;
I work with white rot fungi (P. ostreatus in this case) to measure the biodegradation of organic contaminants in polluted matrices. Before I subject the fungi to any contamination, I grow it in stationary liquid glucose peptone media in the dark at 25˚C for 14 days. Then I decant the old media, refresh with new GPM and put in the polluted media. That grows for 5 days with constant shaking. I notice after ~2 days that there is this goo that forms on the mycelial mat (it has the consistency of snot). It seems to be fungal in origin but since I'm not a mycologist and don't have an expert to consult with at my university, I'm wondering if someone could tell me what this is?
When I rinse the fungal mycelia with milliQ water, the goo sloughs off but retains it's shape for the most part. Another note, when I grow the P. ostreatus in just water, there is a lot less of this substance than if I grow it in GPM (see picture)
If you have any ideas or thoughts, please let me know!
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Contamination. Could be bacterial fungal or both.
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📢 Request for Expertise: Identification of Fungal Contamination! 🍄🔍
I am seeking assistance from experts in mycology and fungal contamination identification. I have encountered a fungal growth within my research experiment and require your expertise to accurately identify its type. Attached to this post is an image depicting the fungal contamination in question:
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You need to culture and get both culture and microscopic morphology.
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From which stage of lifestyle disease? We want to assess the rust effects in biological control of weeds. In addition, we want to inoculate it to weeds in different dilutions and various times.
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how can I do the single spot culture of leaf rust of wheat?
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Hello, ResearchGate community,
I am a B.Sc. student in my third year taking Biology and Art. Through my schooling, I have discovered a passion for mycology and genetics! I was wondering if any fungal geneticists here could detail the educational route that led to your career and if anyone could impart any wisdom to an enthusiastic student.
Jubilee Connor
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Having worked in microbiology for years, including providing accredition sampling to meat testing. I found there was a limit to how far I could go. Having a life long love of learning I decided to go back to school and pursue a masters in counselling psychology.
Since opening a private practice www.mindsetsolutionscounselling.ca I have found my passion and can changed direction as my interests and knowledge increase.
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I observe strange dark brown segments of mycelium on my fungus (L. maculans) grown in vitro, the fungus is otherwise white. I wonder whether this morphological change is connected with mycelial viability.
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Does this thread still continue? I really want to hear the answer. Thank you
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Can anyone provide me some pictures or diagram to show the region called "cortex" in Hymenochaete species and/or some description about the region and how to identify if a species of Hymenochaete has cortex or not?
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Hello Rakhe Tepin , I provide figure 7c from the bilingual book of Eugene Yurchenko on corticioid fungi of Belarus https://rep.polessu.by/handle/123456789/21094. Check the layer marked as 'co'. It is a layer between the regular trama and hairs. If present, it is recognised with a naked eye or via stereomicroscope as something denser and darker colored that the trama.
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If we have written the article with mentioning the genus level identification in fungi allow it to publications or not? If they are allowing please let me know the journal, probably we thought that the publication need thorough identification, but here my article is based on the rare distribution with ecological connection has been discussed. The article content the newly analyzed data where the unrecorded list found in collection of evidences or article analysis says..
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It is essential in any publication that others can precisely reproduce authors' work so as to confirm the phenomena reported. Therefore most if not all reputable journals will require the islate or specimen to exist (not be remembered or in photo), be appropriately identified (esp. by molecular methods) and be deposited in an accessible collection.
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Dear all,
I inoculated a 200 ml minimal medium with 50g/L glucose with an unknown yeast (shown in figures).
After an incubation of 72 hours, at 180 RPM and 28 C, the broth containing the yeast turned very viscous, slippery liquid. In HPLC, using H column with 5mM Sulphuric Acid as mobile phase and RID as well as UV detector, nothing was detected.
The colour of the yeast is not cream or white, but its like cantaloupe colour.
Any type of help in identifying this yeast or the viscous product shall be highly appreciated.
Best Regards
Arush
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@Arushdeep, I also recommend molecular identification.
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I am currently studying fungal endophytes and I am utilising both culture dependent and high throughput methods to do so.
When culturing I understand it is common practice to use leaf press controls and/or plating up wash water to make sure that the surface sterilisation was successful and that in fact anything that grows is a fungal endophyte.
I have been wondering what controls people are using to check the same thing when using high throughput approaches? There doesn't seem to be too much in the literature talking about this. I have started to collect "dirty" samples which I will not sterilise but will sequence for fungi - I expect that these dirty controls will contain more species than sterilised leaves, but this still doesn't feel like a true test of the surface sterilisation process.
Interested to hear what controls you may be using!
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Hi, thank you for your reply, I like the idea of using the saline solution to get an idea of what DNA was on the surface of the sample, especially since I assume that the surface sterilization method may kill any surface fungi, but not necessarily remove their DNA. Out of interest how long could you store the saline solution? and do you keep it in a fridge/ freezer?
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Hello there,
I'm a student culturing fungal endophytes from seagrass. I am curious if anyone can recommend books or other resources available with dichotomous keys for fungal identification?
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Also, you can see the following references:
Fungi and food spoilage
Dematiaceous hyphomycetes
More dematiaceous hyphomycetes
Atlas of entomopathogenic fungi
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Would the dominance of one of the microbes in the gut change if we give different foods to insects or larvae? Suppose the insect is supplemented with amylase-producing bacteria, fed with carbohydrates such as rice, corn, and other sources.
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Kindly check the following RG link in which a representative strain collection of dominant aerobic bacteria from black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens, BSFL) has been established:
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Hello! I am a new PhD student and unfamiliar to the mycology world, yet my current project requires a decent amount of work in it. I would like to isolate total protein from Aspergillus fumigatus and then probe it with various antibodies we have to check for binding. However, I am unfamiliar with culture and lysis techniques for fungi. I have heard of a couple freezing and grinding techniques, but haven't found many established techniques. Can anyone recommend their favorite protocol that could help me? We have also discussed looking at hyphae and mycelium, so perhaps one protocol for each would be best. Thank you!
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Dear, John,
Please have a look at the research entitled: Proteomic analysis on Aspergillus strains that are useful for industrial enzyme production , By: Takagi et al., 2020, Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry. It may be helpful.
With regards. I attached the paper with this post.
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Is there anybody working on fungus? I am facing a problem in identification of fungus under microscope. I use lactophenol cotton blue flooding over slide where fungus is placed from fungal plate. Then i use cover slip on it. But the mycellium is not clear under microscope, i mean it shows a bizarre condensed growth. 
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Hi Dr Shovon Lal Sarkar . To identify fungi under microscope the best technique is a slide culture, first from the primary plate/tube make slide culture of overnight to 48 hours. See the link: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What-is-the-best-method-for-the-identification-of-Fungus-under-microscope
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Hello, I am currently an undergraduate student at Purdue. I am currently looking at potential research topics to get into during graduate school. Right now I work in a botany lab studying ABA levels in deciduous trees. However, in my own free time, I have been obsessed with the interaction between tree species through different mycorrhizal networks. I have a decent list of researchers working on this topic (I will put their names below), but I was wondering if there are any schools or individuals I should strongly consider and reach out to before applying.
1. Rolf Geisen (Max Rubner-Institut, Germany)
2. Marc Stadler (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Germany)
3. John Pitt (Australia)
4. Jens Frisvad (Technical University of Denmark)
5. Vit Hubka (Charles University Prague, Czech)
6. State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences http://english.im.cas.cn/rh/rd/Mycology1/
8. Dr. Catherine Aime (Purdue University)
9. Songlin Fei (Purdue University)
10. Peter Kennedy (University of Minnesota)
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Ectomycorrhizae have many differences from Endomycorrhizae. Each one has it's own mode of action with the plant root which related with.
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I am not getting authonticated information, is it Vegetable juice or ....
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V-8 Agar is a medium consists of 8 types of vegetables including carrot, spinach, tomato, celery, parsley, beets, watercresses and lettuce. They are mixing together with known percent and preparing a juice from them and adding CaCO3 (3gm). It's a good medium for isolating Pythium spp.
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I am looking for Scopus indexed journals (publish for free) in the medical Mycology field; any help will be appreciated....
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Yes, it is general microbiology including mycology and it is free
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I recently started a project to investigate some murine mice models of C.albicans association and infection models. Reading original articles and reviews is quite helpful but I want to understand this fungus more in depth. so I would deeply appreciate a good text book(s) to read about morphology , growth and culture of this organism..
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The textbook titled "Fungi and Food Spoilage" by: John I. Pitt l Ailsa D. Hocking, 2009 contains some informations about yeasts.
I hope it's benefit.
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Dear all,
Hope you are doing well.
I'd kindly like to ask if anyone may have any available internships/apprenticeships with regards to the field of research. I am a volunteer with IAESTE Malta and am currently in my second year completing a Bachelors of Science (Honours) with Chemical Technology where I place as one of the highest students in my class. I am looking for a 1-3 month period that focus' on spectroscopic technics or anything mycology and/or chemistry related.
I am asking here since I would like to have an experience outside of my country that would be both educational and enjoyable.
Anyone that may know of any offer and/or is offering one please leave a comment or email me through my student email: shaun.attard.e21254@mcast.edu.mt.
Thank you for your time and considerations.
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Hi Shaun! I'm not sure where you are located, but I would recommend researching Research Experience for Undergraduates (REUs) in the U.S. Many schools here offer a summer internship program for students from another school. I am unsure of their stance on international students though.
If you are a U.S. citizen, then I highly recommend looking into internships with NASA if they align with your interests. You can learn more about those opportunities at intern.nasa.gov.
You might look up some companies that you are interested and reach out to them specifically. The easiest way to do that might be to find employees of the company on LinkedIn and reach out to them. They might be able to point you in the right direction on how to get an internship with their company.
Good luck and I hope this helps!
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I want to study the interactions between some putative fungal endophytes and model plants related to valuable crops. As far as I know nothing is known about their possible interactions with plants. I was thinking of using either Lotus Japonicus or Medicago truncatula.
What model plant would you recommend and why?
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Dear Nicolò Maria Villa,
Hi, it depends on your desired mycorrhizal fungi and host compatability level with them. It seems you need more information about host susceptibility and life cycle and etc.
Best regards,
Saeed
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The pictures were taken in Guishan Mts in Yunnan. The fungus is ca. 10-12 cm high.
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Probably Marasmius Sp.
Next step.
This one
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Mycology, Plant pathogen
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Which are best Methods to extract Metarhizum toxins?
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I am currently pursuing my research in Bioactivity of Lichens . I'd like to know if this particular genus has any anticancer activity.
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Lichens are a source of a great variety of unique secondary metabolites with important biological activities, including antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anticancer, among others. A large body of research has demonstrated anticancer effects of lichens by inhibition of initiation, growth and invasion of several cancer cell types in vitro and in vivo.
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So far I have not been able to find a camera lucida that fits a low range microscope.
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here are my suggestions
Graphics tablet
In theory, the component is optional, since you can draw with the mouse. Practically necessary. You can choose a tablet based on your requirements or budget. The better the tablet, the more comfortable it will be to draw and the more accurate the drawing will be.
The equipment we used:
Jenaval microscope
ScopeTec DCM 500 USB camera
Wacom Intuos 4M graphics tablet and stylus
Computer configuration:
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E7500 2.93 GHz
4GB memory
500GB hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 4550 512M Graphics Card
and a laptop (Dell Inspiron 600m), which also worked, but with an effort:
Intel Pentium M processor 1.6GHz
512 MB memory
HDD 200 GB
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Graphics
The general rule is that the higher the picture resolution will be given by the video camera, the more powerful the computer is required. For low resolutions (up to 1280x900) and 15 frames per second, our laptop was quite enough. A large RAM will be useful if you want to draw a large poster in a graphics editor.
and programs:
Apart from the operating system, everything is distributed under a free license.
Here are our picks for today:
Windows XP SP2 Home Edition Rus http://www.microsoft.com/
VLC media player http://www.videolan.org/
for bitmaps InkScape http://www.inkscape.org/
for vector drawings
Tried, but liked it less. It is possible that in your hands it will work as it should:
picked up the video camera every other time
no full support for Wacom tablet under Windows XP
ArtWeaver (v. 1.0) http://www.artweaver.de/
tends to give almost all processor resources to the video player, and as a result, they are not enough for drawing
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I'm working with soil fungi and I observed its morphology and spore structures under a scanning electron microscope up to the genus level. I think they are rhizopus genus but how can I know which particular species they belong to? Could anyone recommend a biochemical test for identification?
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The cost of sequencing has gone down sharply (now currently in 2020) and more informative molecular markers for fungal identification like tef-1-alpha and beta-tubulin are being used as per the suitability of the species studied.
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Dear all,
Please help me identifying this fungal species. It has cream to white raised colonies with cheesy appearance.
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I would either go with the Geotrichum or the Saccharomyces diagnosis.
Ascochyta spp. conidia are medianly 1-septate and borne in a pycnidium fruit body. They most likely would also not be as uniform as the structures shown here. Of course, it would have been of great help to give at least an approximate size in micron of the fungal spores.
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I recall reading a publication where the authors estimated (or was it speculated on) a ) the proportion of fungi that cannot be kept in culture and b) the proportion of fungi that do not seem to produce fruiting bodies. I cannot remember what publicaiton it was though. Does anyone know?
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See page 4, right hand column,
" The literature survey revealed a ratio of cultured fungal numbers to OTUs as 1:0.6– 1:107.3 according to different culture-independent methods, with an average ratio as 1:8.8. Considering their overlaps (Table 2), the total fungal estimation should be 7.8–8.8 times that of culture-dependent methods. Based on the widely accepted estimate of 1.5 million culturable fungal species (Hawksworth 1991) and then 2.2–3.8 million (Hawksworth and Luecking 2017), our estimation range of total fungal diversity is about 12 million (11.7–13.2) species"
There's no mention of fruiting body proportions in terms of figures but you will find it discussed so the references might get you to where you want
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I am a member of a group of veterinarians who all became ill within about a years time of each other, and who all were employed in the same physical location. Some of the affected veterinarians also had human and/or canine family members who also went on to develop a very similar illness to that seen in the cluster of veterinarians. The practice facility was inspected by OSHA and traditional medical work-up was done on all of those affected. No unifying etiology could be determined for the "syndrome" of illness described by those affected, but environmental chemicals and psychiatric causes were ruled out. As veterinarians and other types of scientists (affected family members), we recognized that the pattern of illness development appeared most consistent with some type of infectious process (possibly with genetic predispositions to resistance/succeptibility to the agent). The illness appeared to develop in unrelated people who worked at a common site initially, then multiple family members of some affected veterinarians developed a similar illness. Our familiarity with collecting/interpreting FNA/cytology samples allowed us to do some diagnostic tests that are not available in human reference laboratories, and with the encouragement of infectious disease physicians at Mayo and UCD medical centers we began some carefully controlled cytology tests on samples provided by those affected with the "syndrome" of illness, as well as samples from healthy control family members/colleagues.
What we have found is an incredibly consistent pattern of fibers/filaments, copiously present in the urine of those affected individuals, and completely absent in the healthy controls. Initially we suspected the filaments to be a possible nematode, but further tests demonstrated that there were also more fragile yeast-like objects and highly organized fruiting-body-like structures associated with the filaments. We also found the filaments and "spores" in subcutaneous nodules, cyst fluid, sputum, and blood cultures from those affected. These details, along with positive staining for chitin by lactophenol cotton blue and calcofluor-white, and positive staining for a thick mucopolysaccharide coat by Alacian Blue- led us to modify the hypothesis and consider that these objects could indicate a fungal or pseudofungal infection.
Many permutations of cytology tests (always coupled with control studies of the same tissues in healthy counterparts) have led us to suspect that we may be seeing some type of oomycete, somewhat similar to Pythium or Lagenisma. We have attempted sequencing, but not gotten consistent results and/or have gotten reports of sequences that are either truncated or reported as different types of fungi, none of which are obviously close relatives of oomycetes. Since this research is unfunded, we have not been able to pursue as much molecular testing as would be ideal. The UCD infectious disease physician did agree that the images were compelling, but not his primary field of study. He/we filed a report with the CDC about the possiblity of this being an emerging/novel human pathogen, but the CDC has not replied to his follow-up requests for assistance in characterizing the findings.
I realize our involvement in this research is both non-traditional and that those of us doing it have motivations beyond that which drives most research. However, we have had enough independent scientists/physicians corroborate our perception that we are seeing something "not normal" in the tissues/fluids of those affected compared to the healthy controls, and encourage us to continue to try to find answers, that I feel compelled to post our findings thus far and ask for opinions and advice. We are hoping that someone, much more expert in mycology/protistology than us might be willing to review these images and offer their perspective. Also, if there is anyone actively pursuing ( or wanting to pursue) this line of research, we are happy to share all of our data gathered thus far, in hopes that it may lead to faster and more thorough characterization of what we have found, and hopefully application to determine which chronic diseases may have this putative infection as a component of their etiology.
Thanks!
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Dear Dr.Melinda,
I am attaching PDF of our Review article to your reference with a hope that it will be useful to you.
Please confirm receipt of the review on Pythiosis.
With best wishes and good luck,
Prof.Dr.Mahendra Pal
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I have collected this from Islamabad, Pakistan.
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It looks Morchella conica.
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Hi,
i have a fluid sample of a plant extract that over the weekend grew a massive contamination (lab bench - room temperature).
So to find out which of the used ingredients (dry substances or water) might have caused this it would be great to know what genera this could be - as this info may be used to track back the origin.
I am aware of the difficulties of specie identification from macroscopic pictures only, but this is unfortunately all we have.
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It might be of Cladosporium or penicillium sp by the gross morphology. If you attach a microscopic view, i will definitely let you know.
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I need to know about McFarland turbidity standards for fungi, if anyone has some information I need it urgently
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All the bacterial and fungal suspensions were prepared by suspending 18 h grown bacterial and 24h fungal culture in sterile normal saline (0.89% NaCl wt/vol). The turbidity of the bacterial suspension was adjusted to 0.5 McFarland standard (equivalent to 1.5 × 108 CFU/ml) and 1.0 McFarland standard (equivalent to 1.5 × 108 CFU/ml) for fungal strains. Boswellic acids stock solutions were prepared in 100% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO; Merck, Mumbai India)
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We saw during survey studies that there are mushrooms on pomegranate stems and branches, but we were unable to give it a meaning. Can someone explain this?
Thank you.
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Could you please tell the name of this mushroom??
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Hi everyone,
As part of my PhD program I would require some Verticillium dahliae for inoculations on olive plantlets, preferably VD pathotype D of known virulence.
Is there anyone working with this pathogen willing to share their isolates or perhaps to share an information on where to obtain them?
Would appreciate any information you can provide.
Thank you.
Regards,
Kristina
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You can obtain V. dahliae strains from ATCC from which some are pathogenic. If not possible and you have some isolates of this fungal plant pathogen you can molecularly characterize with help of few primers which show band at 334 and 462 bp (specific for Defoliating (D) type).
You can take help from the following article:
Jimenez-Diaz., et al (2011). Region-wide analysis of genetic diversity in Verticillium dahliae populations infecting olive in southern Spain and agricultural factors influencing the distribution and prevalence of vegetative compatibility groups and pathotypes. Phytopathology, 101(3), 304-315.
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The fungus I am working on doesn't produce spores even after 10 days of inoculation. To make the spore suspension, i am using the protocol mostly suggested using tween 80 and distill water, but still under microscope I can't observe any spores. Is there any particular protocol to observe the difference phases of fungal growth phases?
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Welcome👍👍@Himanshu Arora
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I collected a cryopreserved culture of Colletotrichum sp. nearly 10 months ago. It used to take nearly 18 days to completely cover a 9 cm diameter petriplate with PDA as media for almost past 9 months. And in the last one month suddenly it started to grow really fast and took only 12 days to completely cover the plate. Please help me in this.
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Dr. Purushottam Khetri Ramteke sir, I think the same.
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A question for Trichoderma specialists - has any research been done on the morphogenesis of conidiophores in Trichoderma and how that might relate to mycoparasitic structures? What I've noticed is that Trichoderma harzianum hyphae tend to form these dense branchlet structures that look a lot like developing conidiophores. However, they don't always develop to conidiophores, but often can meet an form anastomosing structures between the main-branch hyphae or even become the source of appresoria. In dual cultures with other species, Trichoderma seems to form a lot of these branchlets at the growth front compared to when it is growing alone.
If this is a widely-known phenomenon, could someone point me to literature on the topic? I'm not finding much via a Google Scholar search.
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As example:
It shares eidamia-like morphology of conidiophores with T.viridescens, but it has smooth, ellipsoidal conidia that have the longest L/W ratio that we have seen in Trichoderma. In:
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Has such a question been answered in a paper? Or does anyone have experience with that?
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While doing leaf litter decomposition experiment following Olsen (1963) we got k value (per year) 0.18 and half life 3.85. However, 54.01% weight has already lost at the end of first year. How can we interprete the value of half life and weight loss?
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I'm looking for a good protocol for taking fungi (mostly conidial ascomycetes) growing on an agar plate and fixing them and ultimately staining and mounting them. Would one simply remove a plug of agar with the hyphae growing on the surface and submerge that in buffer + formaldehyde or other fixative? How do you do this while keeping the conidia + conidiophores intact?
How do you separate the hyphal layer from the agar underneath, or at least as much of as possible, and then mount the hyphal layer under a coverslip?
I've looked through a lot of 'materials and methods' sections in papers on microscopy of these kinds of fungi, but these details are largely missing.
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There is essentially no worthwhile documentation for making fungal mounts, and it mostly boils down to trial and error with a full sharps bin full of failures before you start making progress.
Do not use Scotch tape, it decreases the amount of light which makes it to your camera and reduces the dynamic range. Also it barely picks up anything worth photographing and rips apart relevant structures (e.g. you pick up a conidiophore of an Aspergillus but the stipe got town and there is no foot cell)
What I typically do is slice out a 1 cm^2 piece of agar with a sterile scalpel. Make 2 series of parallel cuts, perpendicular to each other (essentially make a # pattern). Gently remove the square (containing the leading edge of a colony) and place onto a microscope slide (with the side containing growth face up).
I use DIC as well, and I just place a drop of sterile water on top of the agar square, place a cover slip down, and mount onto the microscope stage.
Now I typically work with Fusarium species which spread out on a clear water agar surface, and the philiades are dispersed enough that this method works very conveniently. If you are working with Aspergillus or Penicillia the above method will probably result in a large, opaque, knotted mess under the microscope. The nice thing about DIC is that the depth of field is super small so you may be able to focus in on a conidiophore while the hyphae are mostly out of focus.
The alternative is to make 3 cuts at the leading edge of a colony. Make one cut perpendicular to the leading edge behind where you see sporulation (think cutting the crust off a pizza) like ---------. Then make 2 cuts around 1 cm apart perpendicular to the first into the agar like --|---------|--. Then you need to make another cut parallel to the first one (--------) at like a 45 degree angle towards the colony. Instead of a square like above you are extracting a triangle with the least amount of agar as possible.
From there you extract the agar piece containing the colony and place onto a microscope slide. Add a couple drops and use needles to "tease" out the knotted mess that the hyphae is in. Do not poke repeatedly, do not rip to oplivion, just try to loosen the mess a bit and try to flatten everything.
If possible, cut off any excess agar. Then place a cover slip and try to crush the hyphae the best you can. If you picked up too big of a piece the cover slip may snap and break. You can try shearing the slide a bit to spread out the hyphae, but too much will ruin everything worse than Scotch tape.
The goal is to have as flat a layer of hyphae as possible before you begin looking for structures under the microscope. Do not waste your time looking around the center of the knotted mess, instead look around the edges of the clumps you eased apart. If all goes well you will see some conidiophores free from the mess and suspended loosely enough to photograph.
If you end up with a slide which is essentially an ocean of spores, my recommendation is to hold the agar piece you just extracted onto the microscope slide with a teasing needle and rinse the colony with sterile water before teasing to remove the bulk of the spores. There will still be plenty left, but hopefully you could now see if that Aspergillus isolate has metulae or if that Penicillium isolate is biverticillate.
-Best, someone who has had to make microscopic mounts of fungal food contaminants for the past 5 years
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i have recently completed my ph.d from jilin agricultural university changchun China, with two SCI publications. i am seeking post doc position, if anybody can help me, thanks in advance.
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One thing that you can do is to find faculty members who are working in your field of expertise and email them to see if they need any post doc. Also you can take a look to http://jobs.apsnet.org/ which is American Phytopathological Society Job Board.
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i need good topics from general microbiology, virology, bacteriology, mycology, microbial food toxicity, any topics on public health. i would prefer the topics to suit developing countries. thanks in advance
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Let me ask a question - I am assuming you are an undergraduate student, and do you need to do a laboratory based research project or a library written paper as this makes a big difference in what we should suggest. If a lab research project, how much time are you supposed to devote to it, and what type of facilities and equipment do you have to use?
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I want to culture Fusarium oxysporum. Can anyone provide me detailed protocol for Fusarium oxysporum culture?
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I face the same problem in growing fusarium oxysporum >> after one year of continuous sub- culturing on PDA medium the growth became transparent without apparent mycelium or spores . would you please tell me any solution for this case
thanks
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Looking for any papers or information on examples from various environments (ie. arctic vs drier southern climates) of lichen symbiosis and how each symbiont benefits or not from the relationship in relation to its environment. Or just any papers or information in general on lichen symbiosis would be appreciated.
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My family and I would like to welcome any and all responses, advice, and any additional information that you would like to share. We would also like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts (in advance) for taking the time to read our 'question' and for sumbitting an answer. Your participation, assitance, and expertise can never be respected enough!!!
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Yvette MacBride wow – I had no idea of the existence of carpet beetles! What weird and wonderful creatures. I'm fascinated that there's a type of carpet beetle that infests violin cases and eats the bow hair. I mean, how the heck did that evolve?
Kudos for the identification!
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Mycology is the study of fungi. What are novel fungi that are not poisonous but has high fiber degradability.
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I am growing them on PDA (potato dextrose agar) @ 25-27C, dark condition as suggested from most papers and websites found.
However they have been growing mycelia insted of spores (Metarhizium has green spores, but only white mycelia can be observed).
Is there anyway to induce spores formation? Thanks
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Studies show sporulation is dependent on lighting full illumination during the culture is recommended.
The use of rice bran and husks are a good solid media and some researchers suggest supplement with insect leachate can be useful.
For an entomopathogen I think the supplementing with larvae or pupae in a rice bran husk media would be a good idea.
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And is it possible to use that toxin against plant pathogen or pests?
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use the liquid media for the targeted fungus. and then put the flask in the shaker machine for some days. than you can use the centrifuge for extracting the fungus products.
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The fungus was isolated from rotted structural wood in an ancient building. Small white/grey sphaerical structures were visible by naked-eye on the wood surface. They were sampled and inoculated on Malt Extract Agar, the vegetative mycelium developped after few days but no fruiting bodies were present (even after 15 days). Pieces of the vegetative mycelium were then inoculated on a piece of Pinus sylvestris sapwood placed on MEA. The attached microphotographs were taken after 10 days.
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It will be more easy for us if you add the petri dish photos
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hi guys, actually, i do confuse with the formula for spore counting at middle one of the neubauer chamber (the smallest one)...some showed me the formula of total spore count in random 5 boxes/5 times 10^4 times 25....some told me that the value of 25 should be the dilution factor...which one is true?
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I agree with Hero Mohammad Ismae
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our isolate has stopped sporulation .What is the easiest way to revive it?
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Van Leeuwen, G., Hobb, I, and M. Jeger. 2002. Factors affecting mummification. Mol. Plant Path. Open Access December 20, 2002. Prepare you nectarine dextrose agar using diced nectarines that are cooked and strained. Use half the dextrose of PDA and agar to your solification need. Hope the information is useful. In the Dutch study the low temperature favoring sporulation was apparent this is outside the normal media growth temperatures. UV light can be very important as Alex noted.
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Dear Friends,
Isn’t it true: “Paradigm” is one of the most deeply useful and most used or abused term in the intellectual circles and discussions?
I used the term often, without fully comprehending its finer details. So, I started searching for comprehensive description to fully comprehend the meaning to gain deeper insights but could not reach the goal yet.
Hence, I decided to create one and share here for debate and discussion for improving my understanding by listening to different perspectives for gaining new insights. Let me share, my preliminary draft description and insights briefly:
Question: What is a scientific or technological Paradigm?
Answer: A Paradigm is a complex perception of reality painted by a huge BoK (Body of Knowledge) comprising thousands of pieces of Knowledge such as individual observations, experiences, shared background axiomatic-assumptions, values, theories, postulates and prevailing climate of opinions or thought patterns of a very large community or group of persons subscribed to the paradigm.
A paradigm can become a deeply entrenched paradigm, only if it attracts a very large community or groups of practitioners and researchers for expanding the paradigm and they together accumulate a huge BoK by acquiring knowledge for decades or even centuries. Each piece of knowledge in the BoK for a deeply entrenched paradigm is consistent and/or congruent with all the other pieces of the knowledge in the BoK and overall perception of reality painted by the BoK.
The Books and research publications for each discipline (e.g. Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, virology, mycology, parasitology, and bacteriology to name a few) comprises a huge BoK accumulated for decades, and the BoK paints a perception of reality, where the perception of reality is the “Paradigm”.
In other words, paradigm for a discipline is our understanding of the world or perception of reality painted by the BoK or Knowledge in text books and research papers. Every mature discipline must have a paradigm, which is nothing but a perception of reality painted by the BoK acquired and accumulated for the discipline.
Almost every discipline including soft-sciences (e.g. sociology, political sciences, psychology, economics or even each religion) having BoK that paints a perception, which may be referred to as a paradigm. My understating has few gray or blurred patches, so like to here other perspectives to improve clarity.
Our understanding of term “paradigm” can never be complete without knowing the state of Knowledge without a paradigm (e.g. during pre-paradigmatic state). The seminal and influential book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” By Thomas Kuhn (who coined the term “paradigm”) describes a period called pre-paradigmatic (or pre-science) state for each scientific discipline, when the scientific discipline is in its infancy (i.e. at the time of its inception).
During the pre-paradigmatic period, there exists a chaotic situation. There is a good summary for chaotic state during pre-paradigmatic (or pre-science) for any discipline in this informative video starting 1 minute 16 seconds for just two and half minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPsc55zsXA (also next video may be interesting, which explains that creating a paradigm is essential to overcome such chaos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOGZEZ96ynI)
During the pre-paradigmatic (or pre-science) it is very hard to acquire knowledge. So, a basic foundation would be formed over the period for a paradigm by accumulating various theories, axioms, postulates that are created using reasoning and consensus and by relying on background assumptions, observations, prevailing climate of opinions or thought patterns.
For example, the pre-paradigmatic (or pre-science) period for basic sciences might be between 4th century BC and 1st century CE, during the many ancient philosophers (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and Archimedes etc.) created the foundation for first scientific paradigm. This unfortunately also comprised a flawed axiomatic assumption or fallacy: The Earth is static. Exposing the fallacy resulted in a scientific revolution.
Likewise, even modern scientific disciplines would have a pre-paradigmatic (or pre-science) period. For example, the paradigmatic (or pre-science) period for computer science and software was approximately between mid-1950s and early-1970s.
For example, two NATO software engineering conferences 1st from 7th to 11th October 1968 and 2nd conference from 27th to 31st October 1969 defined (or coined) new terms such as “software engineering”, components and assembling etc., where the conferences were attended by many influential though leaders and researchers of computer science from almost all nations, which were engaged on computer science research at that period.
Although they became integral part of our vocabulary, the terms such as “software engineering” or “assembling” were perceived to be provocative or strange in 1968. There would be a period for transition from pre-science to normal science for such terms to become integral part of our vocabulary.
Also different groups may make the transition during different periods. It is also hard to know exact duration of transition, so my guess is that it happened between 1970 and 1975, but certainly culminated into a paradigm before 1979.
A paradigm would slowly become more and more entrenched (1) as more and more pieces of knowledge are accumulated and added to the BoK (Body of Knowledge), and (2) as more and more practitioners and researchers become subscribers to the paradigm. I think, software paradigm also has fallacies injected during pre-science period. Exposing those fallacies should result in a revolution.
According to the book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” By Thomas Kuhn (who coined the term “paradigm”): If any new piece of knowledge or fact is proposed or discovered for a deeply entrenched or dominant paradigm, it would face fierce resistance from the practitioners of the paradigm and they try their best to suppress the new piece of knowledge (e.g. even by resorting to attacks), if the new piece of knowledge is not congruent, but contradict or inconsistent with the perceptions or reality painted by the BoK for the dominant paradigm.
Normal science solves puzzles that are posed by the prevailing paradigm but does not challenge the paradigm's basic axiomatic tenets or postulates. But in fact, "normal science" will suppress novelties which undermine its foundations (i.e. the basic axiomatic tenets or postulates). If the fundamental axiomatic postulates are fallacies and exposing the fallacies would result in a revolution.
Best Regards,
Raju Chiluvuri
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In science and philosophy, a paradigm (/ˈpærədaɪm/) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field.
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I want to compile some information about the leading universities or research centers in the field. Feel free to contribute.
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The Mycology Unit of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Reus, Catalonia, Spain) is an excellent research group working on systematics of clinical and environmental fungi. Some outstanding scientists who have worked (or currently work) there are Drs. Josep Guarro, Javier Pastor, Josepa Gené, Josep Cano, Alberto Stchigel and Maria José Figueras, among others.
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Dear Colleagues,
I need some help in the identification of these fungal ascospores evidenced in a sediment originating from the "Caune Arago" cave (eastern Pyrenees, France) and dated to 400 000 years ago approximately. There are 2 types: Tauta 12 and Tauta 14. Please see attached files.
I really thank you for your help.
Best regards,
Yannick
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Thanks Saba. Are you speaking about the Type Tauta-12 (the 2 first pictures)?
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Dear all,
I’m looking for options to publish in Mycology (specific or non-specific Journals on Mycology). In 2011, Hyde and KoKo published a very interesting and applicable paper entitled “Where to publish in mycology?” where they provided information for the major journals that publish manuscripts entirely devoted to Mycology. However, were created new Journals in the last years and (unfortunately) open access has forced the author to choice Journals with very expensive publications fees and that yet charge for reads theirs access to our articles. Because of this, I would like to know where do you are publishing your papers? It is worth to publish without open access? Which Journals do you recommend most for fungal biology/ecology publication? I’m asking it just because I'm very worried with the elitism of scientific knowledge and how it can delay the science progress and the dissemination of “what we do in our labs/universities”.
Thanks for your response!
Hyde & KoKo (2011): https://bit.ly/2IuUQrQ.
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Other titles of peer-reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and Clarivate:
1-Current Research in Environmental and Applied Mycology
2-Sabouraudia Journal of Medical and Veterinary Mycology
3-Medical Mycology Case Report
Regards
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Dear researchers,
What are the black structures that appear on Botrytis cinerea mycellium after two weeks of in vitro culture??
I tried to observe them under binocular microscope and I think that they are fruiting bodies but I am not sure.
Can anyone cofirm this ??
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Hi, These are sclerotia , The fungus produces highly resistant sclerotia as survival structures in older cultures.
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I have started working on some edible mushrooms in Nigeria. I wish to join international mycological societies so as to widen my scope and broaden my experience.
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Hi to all!
How to choose a good culture medium to grow fungi in laboratory?
I'd like to know which medium is recommended to growth of saprophytic fungi for isolation and enzymatic activity analysis purposes? Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) with antibiotic is suitable to all fungi in these group? Do you have any recommendation of protocols to preparation of these medium?
Thank you!
FJSC.
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For optimal recovery of fungal pathogen, a battery of media should be used, and the followings are recommended:
Media with or without cyclohexamide (Cycloheximide is added to inhibit the growth of rapidly growing contaminating molds.)
Media with or without an antibacterial agent (Chloramphenicol, Gentamicin and Ciprofloxacin are commonly used antibacterial for this purpose).
Antibacterial agents are used to kill the contaminating bacterial species. If the sample is taken from sterile site, it is not necessary to use media containing antibacterial agents.
Brain-heart infusion (BHI) agar: It is a non-selective fungal culture medium that permits the growth of virtually all clinically relevant fungi. It is used for the primary recovery of saprophytic and dimorphic fungi
Czapek’s agar: It is used for the subculture of Aspergillus species for their differential diagnosis.
Inhibitory mold agar (IMA): Primary recovery of dimorphic pathogenic fungi. Saprophytic fungi and dermatophytes will not be recovered.
Mycosel/Mycobiotic agar:
It is generally Sabouraud’s dextrose agar with cycloheximide and chloramphenicol added.
It is used for the primary recovery of dermatophytes.
Niger Seed Agar: It is used for the identification of Cryptococcus neoformans.
Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA): It is a relatively rich medium for growing a wide range of fungi.
Sabouraud’s Heart Infusion (SABHI) agar: Primary recovery of saprophytic and dimorphic fungi, particularly fastidious strains.
Penicillium notatum on Sabouraud agar Image source: ASM
Penicillium notatum on Sabouraud agar
Image source: ASM
Sabouraud’s dextrose agar (SDA):
Sabouraud’s agar is sufficient for the recovery of dermatophytes from cutaneous samples and yeasts from vaginal cultures.
Not recommended as a primary isolation medium because it is insufficiently rich to recover certain fastidious pathogenic species, particularly most of the dimorphic fungi.
Sabouraud’s dextrose agar (2%) is most useful as a medium for the subculture of fungi recovered on enriched medium to enhance typical sporulation and provide the more characteristic colony morphology.
Potato flake agar: Primary recovery of saprophytic and dimorphic fungi, particularly fastidious and slow growing strains.
Further reading and sources: For more information please read the books:
Koneman’s color atlas and textbook of diagnostic microbiology and
Bailey and Scott’s Diagnostic Microbiology.
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Hello every body
I am interested in producing an antibiotic from Paecilomyces variotii, I recently isolated from soil, I understand from a literature search that an antibiotic from this fungus could be very effective against bacteria, but most references I come across are very old or offer little information. I need a step by step guide on how I can go about this. Can anyone share with me the steps involved and how I can go about it? Many thanks.
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