#ascomycetes

‘Higher fungi’ like mushrooms, yeasts, lichens, and molds are part of the dikarya, a subkingdom of the fungal kingdom that is split into two phyla (taxonomic ranks between kingdom and class); Basidiomycota, and Ascomycota. Higher fungi are categorised into one of these two groups based primarily on their spore type.  

Members of Basidiomycota are called basidiomycetes. Basidiomycetes are fungi composed of hyphae (branching, thread-like filaments that constitute the main vegetative growth form of fungi, known as mycelium) and reproduce sexually via club-shaped end cells called basidia that usually bear external meiospores called basidiospores. Some basidiomycetes, however, reproduce asexually, but are still classified as members of the division due to similarity to others. Common basidiomycetes include agarics, puffballs, stinkhorns, smuts, rusts, polypores (shelf and bracket fungi), and some yeasts. 

(image from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 Kunstformen der Natur) 

Members of Ascomycota are called ascomycetes, or sac fungi. Ascomycota is the largest phylum of fungi, with over 64,000 species. Ascomycetes can reproduce sexually with elongated cells or sacs known as asci (plural of ascus), which produce microscopic spores called ascospores, and asexually with vegetative reproductive spores called conidiospores. Common ascomycetes include yeasts, morels, truffles, molds, mildews, cup fungi, and lichens. 

(selection of anamorphs (asexual reproductive stages) of ascomycetes. (a) Basipetospora variabilis; (b) Scopulariopsis brevicaulis; (c) Harziella (Lepisticola) capitata; (d) Tyrannosorus pinicola; (e) Haplotrichum chilense; (f) Junewangia globulosa)

This information is a very brief overview on the phyla of higher fungi! There is so much more information about both types of fungi, and I haven’t even touched on non-dikarya fungi... I just wanted to give a little lesson about classifications so people will know what I’m talking about when I mention basidiomycetes or ascomycetes. Next Friday will be a regular post:-)

One of the features of the Antarctic Beech forests of New Zealand, particularly on the South Island, is the thick layer of what looks like black moss covering many of the trees. And the ground. And most of the plants in the understory.

The black moss is actually sooty mold, a complex combination of fungi from a variety of different Orders, thriving on the ludicrous amounts of honeydew pumped out by the Sooty Beech Scale Ultracoelostoma assimile. The white filaments sticking out of the mold in the first photo is the anal tube of the scale insects, the longest such tube of any insect. The insect is most abundant on Black Beech Nothofagus solandri (the black in the name is from the mold) and middle-aged trees may lose 80% of the sugars they make to them. Younger trees have smooth bark that doesn't offer safe nooks and crannies for the crawlers, and in mature trees the bark is too thick for the scale insects to drill through.

The honeydew is a keystone feature of the Nothofagus forests - birds, bats, reptiles and insects all feed on the honeydew. Some rely on it. There's at least two species of caterpillar that prey on the scale insects. And a beetle - the only one in its family - that feeds only on the sooty mold.

And then the wasps arrived.

Two species are the problem - Vespula vulgaris (see photo) and Vespula germanica. Both are now more common in the Nothofagus forests then they are anywhere else in the world, and by a horrifying degree. Not only are they getting a diet of pure rocket fuel for much of the year, they then denude the forest of invertebrate life to feed their larvae. By monopolising the honeydew supply they're starving the birds and other animals that need that food supply, especially since introduced mice, rats, and stoats are eating the fruit and seeds of the forest, or turning on the birds when they run out of mice.

What if the Ascomycete elder god was just a lil’ lichen guy. A littol boy. What if I misidentified the lichen I collected and based his hat on so how’s it’s just a vague *parmelia*. Which is ok. It’s fine. I misidentified it bc the inside was the color of a cheeto.