Nia vibrissa

Nia vibrissa is a species of fungus in the order Agaricales. The species is adapted to a marine environment and is a wood-rotting fungus, producing small, gasteroid basidiocarps (fruit bodies) on driftwood, submerged timber, mangrove wood, and similar substrates. The spores have long, hair-like projections and are widely dispersed in sea water, giving Nia vibrissa a cosmopolitan distribution.

Nia vibrissa
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Fungi
Division:
Basidiomycota
Class:
Agaricomycetes
Order:
Agaricales
Family:
Niaceae
Genus:
Nia
Species:
N. vibrissa
Binomial name
Nia vibrissa
R.T. Moore & Meyers

Taxonomy

Nia vibrissa was originally described in 1959 from submerged wood off the coast of Florida. The Latin epithet "vibrissa" (meaning "bristly") refers to the hair-like appendages on the spores. It was initially thought to be a deuteromycete (an asexual or mould-like fungus),[1] but was subsequently found to be the sexual state of a basidiomycete, one of the few such known from the marine environment.[2] Since its fruit bodies are enclosed and its spores are passively released, Nia vibrissa was considered to be a gasteromycete and was placed in its own family within the Melanogastrales, a now obsolete order of terrestrial false truffles.[3]

DNA sequencing has since shown that the species is actually related to species of cyphelloid fungi and agarics within the Agaricales.[4]

Description

Fruit bodies are more or less spherical, yellow-orange to orange-brown, 1–4 mm across. The remarkable spores are oval, 10-15 by 6.5-8.5 μm with 4-5 bristle-like appendages up to 40 μm long.[1]

Habitat and distribution

The species is widely distributed in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea,[5] the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean.[6]

Nia vibrissa has been shown to be a wood-rotting species[7] and was first obtained by leaving wooden "baits" in the sea, retrieving them after a period of time, and then examining them in the laboratory.[1] Other records of the fungus have come from a similar methodology, but it has also been found widely on dead mangrove wood[6] and on natural driftwood. Fruit bodies of the fungus were found on wood salvaged from the wreck of King Henry VIII's 16th-century warship, the Mary Rose.[8]

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References
  1. Moore RT, Meyers SP (1959). "Thalassiomycetes I. Principles of delimitation of the marine mycota with the description of a new aquatically adapted Deuteromycete genus". Mycologia. 51 (6): 871–876. doi:10.2307/3755838. JSTOR 3755838.
  2. Doguet DG. (1967). "Nia vibrissa Moore et Meyers, remarquable Basidiomycète marin". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris. 256: 1780–1783.
  3. Jülich W. (1981). Higher taxa of basidiomycetes. Vaduz: Cramer Verlag. p. 485.
  4. Binder M, Hibbett DS, Molitoris HP (2001). "Phylogenetic relationships of the marine gasteromycete Nia vibrissa". Mycologia. 93 (4): 679–688. doi:10.2307/3761822. JSTOR 3761822.
  5. Grasso S, Panebianco C, La Ferla R (1990). "Lignicolous marine fungi in the Straits of Messina, Italy". Hydrobiologia. 206 (2): 149–154. doi:10.1007/BF00018641.
  6. Baltazar JM, Trierveiler-Pereira L, Loguercio-Leite C (2009). "A checklist of xylophilous basidiomycetes (Basidiomycota) in mangroves". Mycotaxon. 107: 221–224. doi:10.5248/107.221.
  7. Leightley LE, Eaton RA (1979). "Nia vibrissa — a marine white rot fungus". Transactions of the British Mycological Society. 73: 35–40. doi:10.1016/S0007-1536(79)80069-8.
  8. Jones AM, Jones EB (1993). "Observations on the marine gasteromycete Nia vibrissa". Mycological Research. 97: 1–6. doi:10.1016/S0953-7562(09)81104-0.
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