{"id":4816,"date":"2015-03-19T12:36:25","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T16:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=4816"},"modified":"2015-04-15T10:43:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T14:43:36","slug":"researchers-discover-why-some-mushrooms-glow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2015\/researchers-discover-why-some-mushrooms-glow\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Discover Why Some Mushrooms Glow"},"content":{"rendered":"

New study also shows that the mushrooms\u2019 bioluminescence is under the control of the circadian clock<\/em><\/h4>\n

Did you know that there are mushrooms that actually glow? Aristotle was aware of this intriguing fact more than 2,000 years ago. He also was the first person to ask a simple question in print: Why? Now, researchers from Dartmouth\u2019s Geisel School of Medicine and their colleagues in Brazil reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology<\/em><\/a> on March 19 finally have a good answer. The light emitted from those fungi attracts the attention of insects, including beetles, flies, wasps, and ants. Those insect visitors are apparently good for the fungi because they spread the fungal spores around.<\/p>\n

The new study also shows that the mushrooms\u2019 bioluminescence is under the control of the circadian clock. In fact, it was that discovery that led the researchers to suspect that the mushrooms\u2019 light must serve some useful purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegulation implies an adaptive function for bioluminescence,\u201d explains Jay Dunlap, PhD,<\/a> chair of the Department of Genetics at the Geisel School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that fungi make light so they are noticed by insects who can help the fungus colonize new habitats,\u201d says Cassius Stevani, PhD<\/a> of Brazil\u2019s Instituto de Qu\u00edmica-Universidade de S\u00e3o Paulo. The circadian control of bioluminescence makes the process more efficient.<\/p>\n

\"These<\/a>
These are N. gardneri mushrooms growing on the base of a young babassu palm in Gilbu\u00e9s, PI, Brazil. Photo credit: Michele P. Verderane\/IP-USP-2008<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are many examples of living things that generate light in various ways. Among bioluminescent organisms, fungi are the most rare and least well understood. Only 71 of more than 100,000 described fungal species produce green light in a biochemical process that requires oxygen and energy. Researchers had believed in most cases that fungi produce light around the clock, suggesting that perhaps it was a simple, if expensive, metabolic byproduct.<\/p>\n

The new work led by Dunlap and Stevani suggests that just isn\u2019t so, at least not in the case of Neonothopanus gardneri, one of the biggest and brightest of bioluminescent mushrooms. N. gardneri is also called \u201cflor de coco,\u201d meaning coconut flower, by locals in Brazil, where the mushroom can be found attached to leaves at the base of young palm trees in coconut forests.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that the mushrooms\u2019 glow is under the control of a temperature-compensated circadian clock. They suggest that this level of control probably helps the mushrooms save energy by turning on the light only when it\u2019s easy to see.<\/p>\n

To find out what that green glow might do for the mushrooms, the researchers made sticky, fake mushrooms out of acrylic resin and lit some from the inside with green LED lights. When those pretend fungi were placed in the forest where the real bioluminescent mushrooms are found, the ones that were lit led many more staphilinid rove beetles, as well as flies, wasps, ants, and \u201ctrue bugs,\u201d to get stuck than did sticky dark mushrooms.<\/p>\n

Dunlap says they are interested in identifying the genes responsible for the mushrooms\u2019 bioluminescence and exploring their interaction with the circadian clock that controls them. They are also using infrared cameras to watch the interaction between N. gardneri mushrooms and arthropods, especially larger ones, more closely.<\/p>\n

The findings are not only cool, they are also important in understanding how mushrooms are dispersed in the environment, the researchers say. That\u2019s key because mushrooms such as N. gardneri play an important role in the forest ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout them, cellulose would be stuck in its form, which would impact the whole carbon cycle on Earth,\u201d Stevani says. \u201cI dare to say that life on Earth depends on organisms like these.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some fungi in the group known as basidiomycetes, including two bioluminescent mushrooms, are also parasites of coffee and pine trees. As a result, Stevani says, \u201cit is very important to know how basidiomycetes grow and consequently how they spread their spores.\u201d<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the NIH and the Funda\u00e7\u00e3o de Amparo \u00e0 Pesquisa do Estado de S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n

Current Biology<\/em>, Oliveira et al.: \"Circadian Control Sheds Light on Fungal Bioluminescence\"<\/p>\n

Release credit: Cell Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New study by researchers from Dartmouth and Brazil finds mushrooms’ bioluminescence attracts insects and is under the control of the circadian clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[532,506,41,505],"class_list":["post-4816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-research","tag-bioluminescence","tag-circadian-rhythm","tag-genetics","tag-jay-dunlap","author-15"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/03\/NgardneriPalm-glow.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-1fG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4816"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4869,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4816\/revisions\/4869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}