Appearance
Sordaria fimicola is an ascomycete fungus that grows well on nutrient agar, dung, and in decaying matter in soil. As an ascoymcete it has a sexual teleomorph form and an asexual anamorph form. S. fimicola typically follow the life cycle of an obligate dung fungii; sexual reproduction that is obligate to herbivore dung after passage through the herbivore’s gastrointestinal tract. Following meiosis on dung, ascospores are discharged and stick onto plant surfaces where they are thought to remain epiphyllous. S. fimicola grows septate hyphae which at the macro level look like small dark brown fibers forming a fluffy sheet over the substrate. Small black spots will form when sexual reproduction occurs, as these spots are the location of the ascii. Additionally, there are tan and grey mutant strains of S. fimicola. S. fimicola grows best in carbon rich substrates, but it also needs access to nitrogen. Research has shown that S. fimicola grows best with a carbon:nitrogen ratio between 5:1 and 10:1, S. fimicola grown under these conditions produce markedly more perithecium than those with higher carbon ratios or higher nitrogen ratios. S. fimicola grows well in a laboratory setting and because of that it is often used in introductory biology laboratories and also as a model organism for research. S. fimicola is also a good tool for teaching meiosis as it quickly produces diploid perithecium which undergoes meiosis to produce ascii with ordered linear tetrads of haploid ascospores.
Habitat
Although S. fimicola was traditionally understood to grow on the dung of herbivorous animals or in decaying plant matter, but it has also been discovered that it grows symbiotically with some plants. New research shows that S. fimicola is a facultative dung fungus and, S. fimicola has been found to grow among the roots of Rye-grass and wheat-grass. In sterilized and unsterilized soil, S. fimicola promoted host growth and prevented mortality. Research shows that S. fimicola in potato dextrose cultrues, the fungis is capable of producing triacontanol and indole-3-carboxaldehyde, both of which have antibacterial properties that may help prevent host disease.S. fimicola has also been shown to inhibit the growth of other species of fungi which are pathogenic to plants including Pestalotiopsis guepinii, Colletotrichum capsici, Curvularia lunata [Cochliobolus lunatus], Alternaria alternata and Fusarium oxysporum.
S. fimicola has also been shown to negatively affect the health of some plants that it can be found growing on. When S. fimicola was first isolated from maize researchers believed that it was most likely an opportunistic pathogen.. Healthy maize plants in the laboratory did not grow S. fimicola indicating that healthy maize plants may exclude it. S. fimicola did colonize healthy B. tectorum resulting in reduced fecundity and reduced growth.
S. fimicola is also phototropic and the response is twofold: 1) the number of fruiting bodies produced by the fungus is influenced by light and 2) the direction which the fruiting bodies grow is also influenced. This response is likely mediated by a specific fungal receptor called the S. fimicola white collar-1 photoreceptor. Other species of phototropic fungii have homologous receptors with similar receptor domains. S. fimicola with a non-functional mutant SfWC-1 receptor had delayed and less-pronounced fruiting-body formation, was defective in phototropism of the perithecial beaks, and lacked the fruiting-body zonation pattern compared with the wild type.
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