Mycena · Unraveling the ecology of a widespread fungal group by genomic, isotopic and physiological analyses

Unraveling the ecology of a widespread fungal group by genomic, isotopic and physiological analyses

"In my project ""MYCENA"", I have been working on elucidating the life strategy of Mycena (or Bonnet mushrooms), a widespread group of macrofungi with important functions in forests and other terrestrial ecosystems. Like animals, mushrooms cannot do photosynthesis themselves, and must obtain their carbon from plants. Basically, mushrooms can do that either by degrading already dead plant material (wood, debris and litter), or by associating with a live plant source. This latter group of mushrooms can again be roughly subdivided into those that form a parasitic relationship, where they harm or kill the plant by sucking out carbon without providing anything in return; and those that form a mutualistic (mykorrhizal) relationship, where the plant receives phosphorous and nitrogen in return for the carbon allocated to the mushroom. All the thre types of fungal relationships with plants are highly important to every ecosystem on Earth, as to the forestry, agriculture and biotechnological industries. The degraders help clear the earth of dead leaves and twigs, providing the foundation for the life of multiple other organisms´ lives, and many enzymes produced in large quantities by biotech industries originate from degrading fungi. The mykorrizhal fungi enhance the growth of their tree hosts significantly, while parasitic fungi are responsible for enormous losses to forestry and agriculture. While knowledge of the lifestyle of fungal species is very important, a major limitation is that only relatively few mushroom species have a well-known lifestyle. The genus Mycena is one of the largest in the macrofungi (those with a stipe and a cap), and its members had traditionally been uniformly assumed to be degraders of dead plant material. However, modern DNA sequencing studies have shown that surprisingly, many living plant roots actually contain Mycena DNA, suggesting that several members of the genus could in fact be ""biotrophic"" This finding was itself a byproduct of other research, but my MYCENA project directly targeted the members of the genus - in plant roots, in direct growth experiments with one Mycena species and one plant (to see if and how they affected each other), and in full sequencing of the DNA in their genomes (to see if the mushrooms had a genetic makeup that were mostly fit for interaction with living plants, or with breaking down dead plant material), taking advantage of the most modern and cutting-edge molecular biological technologies."

Data: CORDIS, © European Union