#Ascomycota fungi

[suchananewsblog]

When a simple organism sidesteps a complex law of nature

Early people will need to have puzzled why a lady or a boy was equally doubtless at delivery. Why did they seem in a 50:50 ratio and never, say, 67:33? We know in the present day that the reply has two elements. How is intercourse determined at conception? One half is that women have two X chromosomes, one acquired from the mom and the opposite from the daddy, whereas boys have an X from the mom…

[mushrooms-switzerland]

Spitzmorchel, Morchella elata 23.03.24

[wild-e-eep]

Nut disco - Hymenoscyphus fructigenus - growing on last year's hazel nuts

[fungusqueen]

Teleomorphs of an Ascomycete (this was a cup fungi but the term refers to any fungi producing spores on what is referred to as the ascus). These are shown under the microscope with Lugol's solution at a recent fungal microscopy workshop. My last fungal microscopy workshop was on Basidiomycetes and it was cool to see the difference in cutting pieces of specimens to make slides, and the difference in spore-bearing structures under magnification. Lugol's solutions and other reagents can loosen tissues and dissolve pigments and mucilage, making spores easier to observe. Reagents can also produce color changing reactions that can inform species identification

[rattyexplores]

Shield Lichens

Unidentified, subfamily Parmelioideae

24/03/23 - NSW, Dapto

[randomcollection-o-stuff]

I saw your tags on the mycology tumblr post - I challenge you to scare me with a mushroom fact. I’ve harvested and eaten wild mushrooms a few times, I’ve got my share of guidebooks and worked on research my university did on suede boletes. I’m no spring chicken of the woods but i’m also far from an expert. Scare me with the Deep Mushroom Lore

Woaaaah this got a bit lost and im a bit late, yikes! Anyway it looks like you were focusing on the Basidiomycota phylum which is where a lot of the frontliners and popular ones are. But let's look at the Ascomycota, lots of scary stuff there, lord there's so much but baseline ig is cordyceps which everyone knows about now. They can alter and control insects, a big example is bullet ant behavior to makes them climb as high as they can and bite onto the grass or whatnot to secure themselves until the host dies. They go as high as possible so when the cordycep actually grows the fruitbody the spores can spread as far as possible. Luckily for us human nervous systems are way too complex for the cordyceps....for now.

I mean any parasite that controls it's host is crazy and I 10000% recommend looking into it.

There's another fungus Laboulbeniomycetes that grows exclusively on arthropod exoskeleton.

A lot of fungal diseases make me shudder, there are probably fungal spores in your lungs right now! Pneumocystis is the genus of a yeast that loves your lungs and you guessed it, causes a strain of pneumonia that's very hard to diagnose! Yippee! Mostly because it is very hard to culture.

Let's look at everyone's favorite yeast Conidida. This guy is DIMORPHIC so it can be a yeast or invasive hyphae depending on environmental triggers/conditions, and wouldn't you know it, lives at human body temp. This guy causes yeast infections and the like.

Aspergillus is one that ferments soy products BUT can also cause Apergillosis which can cause an allergic reaction and eventually a fungal ball growth in your lungs, aak!

In a different phylum, Mucoromycota, Mucormycosis is probably my least favorite as the group USUALLY targets your fruits and is that pesky mold. Well another version of it will target the sinuses of immunocompromized diabetics. These are sugar loving molds so uhhhhh, no bueno. I recommend looking at pictures with CAUTION it is gross. The eyes can get really messed up, black lesions can show up on your face really really nasty stuff.

Anyway, Ascomycota cool group, lots of human diseases (many of which are hard to cure because of how close fungi are to animals so we target very specific things in their cells but OOPS resistance is on the rise), have fun with this info ::)

[orofeaiel]

Glasscup

[mikroskopie]

Try some things with lichens.

Polarisation

Lichen

[snototter]

Crinkled snow lichen (Flavocetraria nivalis) in Arapahoe National Forest, Colarado, USA

by Ron Wolf

[gaynaturalistghost]

My lichen boy as a very little baby, he’s a old god of old Ascomycetes and almost all lichen fall in that division. Lichens are interesting because it’s not a heritage thing it’s more like a lifestyle choice. The ability to lichenize has been gained and lost several times. I read a paper that changed the emergence of lichens after crown tracheophytes (vascular plants, like ferns, horsetails etc) and I pictured his sister division, Glomeromycota sort of bringing him to land. Glomeromycetes are mycorrhizal and can kind of be… assholes about it. They can hoard everything and might force a symbiosis which is interesting. Um, yeah. I have more art for them floating around my blog.

[mouthydraws]

Each one of these has been more complicated than the last

[mushrooms-switzerland]

Neues aus der Morchel Saison, Update from the morel season

[wild-e-eep]

Rutstroemia firma is a brown cup fungus that grows on dead oak wood. It often has a long, dark stem, but can also come up in crowded rosettes.

[eudikot]

Figuring out Leorio's favorite ascomycota rather difficult, likely because I was focusing on the tasty and showy ones instead of recognizing that penicillium is also an asco. But as an aspiring doctor, I think it would hold a special place in his heart as the fungus that changed the medical field.

[rattyexplores]

Hymenopteran Insect Infested with Fungi

Unidentified, class Sordariomycetes

31/08/22

[unganseylike]

the last of us has truly rotted brains (haha get it). i was explaining to my dad something further from my thesis defense, about infectious fungal diseases, and he was like oh like from TLOU? no father we’re talking about the relevance of opportunistic pathogens to my research keep up