Information on responses of higher organisms to climate change is dominated by events in spring. Far less is known about autumnal events and virtually nothing about communities of microorganisms. We analyzed autumnal fruiting patterns of macrofungi over the past 56 years and found that average first fruiting date of 315 species is earlier, while last fruiting date is later. Fruiting of mycorrhi...

Two species of fossil mushrooms that are similar to extant Tricholomataceae are described from Cretaceous and Miocene ambers. Archaeomarasmius leggetti gen. et sp. nov., from mid-Cretaceous amber of New Jersey, resembles the extant genera Marasmius and Marasmiellus. Two fruiting bodies of Archaeomarasmius were found. One consists of a complete pileus with stipe, and the other consists of a frag...

Using fluorescence differential display, cDNAs specifically expressed at the primordial stage of fruiting body development were isolated from the basidiomycete, Flammulina velutipes. Seventy-five cDNAs were sequenced and compared to the amino acid sequences of proteins in the database by BLASTX search. Significant similarity was found for 29 cDNAs coding for proteins with known function: GTP-bi...

some wild ganoderma lucidum were found growing on logs of dead wood and tree stumps at different location of the nasarawa state college of agriculture, lafia and the faculty of agriculture, lafia campus, during the wet rainy season. the matured fruiting bodies seen as red open caps were removed for proximate, mineral and anti-nutrient evaluation. the result showed that the fruiting bodies conta...

Many species of fungi produce ephemeral autumnal fruiting bodies to spread and multiply. Despite their attraction for mushroom pickers and their economic importance, little is known about the phenology of fruiting bodies. Using approximately 34,500 dated herbarium records we analyzed changes in the autumnal fruiting date of mushrooms in Norway over the period 1940-2006. We show that the time of...

Interest in commercial cultivation and product development of Cordyceps species has shown a recent increase. Due to its biochemical and pharmacological effects, Cordyceps militaris, commonly known as orange caterpillar fungus, is being investigated with great interest. Cultivation of C. militaris has been practiced on a large scale in order to fulfill a demand for scientific investigation and p...

Boreal peatlands play a crucial role in global carbon cycling, acting as an important carbon reservoir. However, little information is available on how peatland microbial communities are influenced by natural variability or human-induced disturbances. In this study, we have investigated the fungal diversity and community structure of both the organic soil layer and buried wood in boreal forest ...

Phenotypic novelties can arise if integrated developmental pathways are expressed at new developmental stages and then recruited to serve new functions. We analyze the origin of a novel developmental trait of Dictyostelid amoebae: the evolution of cAMP as a developmental chemoattractant. We show that cAMP's role of attracting starving amoebae arose through recruitment of a pathway that original...