(Press-News.org) Four new Brazilian species in the genus Ophiocordyceps have been published in the online journal PLoS ONE. The fungi, named by Dr. Harry Evans and Dr. David Hughes, belong to a group of "zombifying" fungi that infect ants and then manipulate their behavior, eventually killing the ants after securing a prime location for spore dispersal.
These results appear in a paper by Evans et al. entitled Hidden Diversity Behind the Zombie-Ant Fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis: Four New Species Described from Carpenter Ants in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This paper is the first to validly publish new fungal names in an online-only journal while still complying with the rules and recommendations of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN).
Beyond this important milestone, the paper is noteworthy for the attention it draws to undiscovered, complex, biological interactions in threatened habitats. The four new species all come from the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil which is the most heavily degraded biodiversity hotspot on the planet. Ninety-two percent of its original coverage is gone.
The effect of biodiversity loss on community structure is well known. What researchers don't know is how parasites, such as these zombie-inducing fungi, cope with fragmentation. Here the authors show that each of the four species is highly specialized on one ant species and has a suite of adaptations and spore types to ensure infection. The life-cycle of these fungi that infect, manipulate and kill ants before growing spore producing stalks from their heads is remarkably complicated. The present work establishes the identification tools to move forward and ask how forest fragmentation affects such disease dynamics.
###
Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
Funding: The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme under an individual Marie Curie International Fellowship to DPH (OIF-221041) and Visiting Fellowship to HCE in collaboration with Simon Elliot at the Federal University of Viçosa in Brazil (CNPq 401610/2009-8).The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Citation: Evans HC, Elliot SL, Hughes DP (2011) Hidden Diversity Behind the Zombie-Ant Fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis: Four New Species Described from
Carpenter Ants in Minas Gerais, Brazil. PLoS ONE 6(3): e17024. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017024
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends):
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017024
FOR A PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT THE FOLLOWING URL:
http://www.plos.org/press/pone-06-03-hughes.pdf
Contact:
David Hughes
Penn State University
dhughes@psu.edu
4 new species of Zombie ant fungi discovered in Brazilian rainforest
2011-03-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Scottsboro Hotel in Alabama Offers Convenient Lodging to Guests Attending Spring-Fling National Jr. College Golf Tournament
2011-03-03
Hampton Inn & Suites Scottsboro Hotel offers nearby lodging to golfers and guests attending the Spring-Fling National Jr. College Golf Tournament at Goose Pond Colony Golf. The tournament will showcase the best young golfers from across the country. The event will take place March 17 - 19, 2011 at Colony Course.
Goose Pond Colony is a municipally owned resort on Lake Guntersville offering two beautiful 18-hole golf courses. The Colony Course was rated 4 stars by Golf Digest in 2008-09. There are views of the lake from every hole on the course. The Par 72 course plays ...
Protein identified that serves as a switch in a key pathway of programmed cell death
2011-03-03
Work led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists identified how cells flip a switch between cell survival and cell death that involves a protein called FLIP.
The findings solve a riddle that has puzzled scientists for more than a decade regarding the dual nature of caspase-8, an enzyme intimately linked to the cell's suicide pathway but also essential for cell survival during embryonic development and the immune response. Researchers identified FLIP and the silencing of another enzyme, named RIPK3, as playing pivotal roles. The study was published in the ...
Clouds amplify ecological light pollution
2011-03-03
The brightness of the nightly sky glow over major cities has been shown to depend strongly on cloud cover. In natural environments, clouds make the night sky darker by blocking the light of the stars but around urban centers, this effect is completely reversed, according to a new study by a group of physicists and ecologists at the Free University of Berlin (FU) and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB).
"We found that overcast skies were almost three times brighter than clear at our rural location, and ten times as bright within the city ...
Atlanta Perimeter Hotel Near Georgia Dome Offers Close Lodging to Fans Attending SEC Men's Basketball Tournament
2011-03-03
The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Atlanta Perimeter Hotel (North) by Perimeter Mall and Atlanta Perimeter Center, offers nearby accommodations to fans attending the 2011 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta, GA. The tournament will be held from Thursday, March 10 -13, 2011. This year's winner will be awarded the SEC conference's automatic bid to the 2011 NCAA Tournament which will follow the 2011 SEC Basketball tournament.
The SEC Basketball Tournament is a premier event in college sports. All Southeastern Conference schools participate ...
Trust, clarity and openness in the workplace
2011-03-03
In times of uncertainty employers should engage more openly with their staff and drop the jargon to improve communication and allow feedback, according to a paper in this month's International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management.
D. Keith Denton of the Department of Management, at Missouri State University, in Springfield, suggests that it is essential for companies that wish to survive economic strife to create an atmosphere of trust in these untrusting times. He says that, "Companies with high-trust levels give employees unvarnished information about company's ...
Research shows how bacteria communicate with each other
2011-03-03
Jerusalem, March 1, 2011 – A pathway whereby bacteria communicate with each other has been discovered by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The discovery has important implications for efforts to cope with the spread of harmful bacteria in the body.
Bacteria are known to communicate in nature primarily via the secretion and receipt of extracellular signalling molecules, said Prof. Sigal Ben-Yehuda of the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC) at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, head of the research team on the phenomenon, whose ...
Sugarcane bioethanol: Environmental implications
2011-03-03
Researchers have long promoted biofuels produced from crop biomass as an environmentally sustainable source of renewable energy. A recent study questions whether the potential climate benefit of sugarcane ethanol is diminished when emissions from land use management are considered.
Scientists examined the sugarcane ethanol production systems to identify sources of greenhouse gas emissions. They found that land use change, fertilization, residue burning, and tillage had the largest impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Dr. Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, head of the ...
Hotel Near Atlanta Airport Offers Nearby Lodging to Travelers Visiting High Museum of Art Atlanta in Midtown
2011-03-03
The Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport Hotel (North I-85) offers nearby accommodations travelers planning to visit the High Museum of Art in midtown Atlanta. High Museum of Art is one of the southeast's leading art museums and is a division of the Woodruff Art Center, which also includes the Alliance Theater and the 14th Street Playhouse. The Museum has more than 12,000 pieces in its permanent collection. Other collections currently on exhibition include:
- Toulouse-Lautrec (The Stein Collection), now through May 1, 2011
- Henri Cartier-Bresson (The Modern Century), ...
UK youth are happy after all?
2011-03-03
As part of the study, which will follow 40,000 UK households over a number of years more than 2,000 young people aged between 10 to 15 years have been asked how satisfied they are with their lives. The findings indicate there is little difference between the average life satisfaction score of those children living in the household with the bottom fifth income and those children living in households in the top fifth income bracket.
Dr Gundi Knies a researcher based at ISER said: "Despite the seemingly high levels of happiness amongst young people in the UK, our children's ...
How much can a cell uptake?
2011-03-03
Immunological research at the University of Haifa, Israel, has made a new breakthrough, revealing a critical component in the "decision-making" process of white blood cells that play a role in the healing process from bacterial inflammation. "The process that we have discovered can assist in the development of drugs that are based on the natural processes that take place in the human body, unlike most of the existing drugs that attempt to curb inflammation by artificial means," explains Dr. Amiram Ariel of the Department of Biology at the University of Haifa, who headed ...