Some fungi such as Pilobolus use light as a "target" for shooting their spore capsules. The fungus grows on cow patties and shoots toward light to avoid getting spore packets on the same patch of manure. Instead, by shooting towards light (up and out) they are more likely to land on grass where another cow can pick up the spore packet in its food. The spores go through the cow's gut and exit in a fresh manure pile. This makes an interesting lab exercise. If you don't know any helpful cows, you can buy the kit from Carolina or Wards - grow the fungus on rabbit manure agar, and then put cups with small light holes in the top over the plates when the spores are ready to shoot. You'll get a nice spatter of capsules around the hole, and if an agar plate is set on top of the hole, you should get growth of the fungus on the new plates. Fun way to show phototropism in fungi. **************************************** D. Liane Cochran-Stafira, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Biological Sciences Saint Xavier University 3700 West 103rd Street Chicago, Illinois 60655
phone: 773-298-3514 fax: 773-298-3536 email: coch...@sxu.edu http://faculty.sxu.edu/~cochran/ <http://faculty.sxu.edu/~cochran/> ________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of Martin Meiss Sent: Tue 2/23/2010 7:41 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Fungi and light Maybe somebody familiar with cave biology could tell us whether guano deposits far from the mouths of caves are beset with fungus. On a similar note, the fungi raised underground by leaf-cutter ants don't seem to mind the darkness. But what about those luminescent fungi in rotting wood? Do they need light so bad they make their own? ;-) Martin Meiss 2010/2/22 Joshua Villa <joshuavi...@gmail.com> > As far as I know fungi, like basidiomycetes, show positive phototropism > (growing toward the light source), but don't necessarily need sunlight in > their lifecycle for growth. I've never grown basidiomycetes in strict > darkness, which may confound typical fruitbody formation. > > Joshua Villa > > > On Feb 22, 2010, at 1:21 PM, Wayne Tyson <landr...@cox.net> wrote: > > QUESTION: Some fungi live without light. Others live in the presence of >> light. Apart from lichenization, do any fungi require light? If so, what >> function does light perform? Are there any fungi that are indifferent to >> light? >> >> WT >> >
