Sometimes, UVIFL can be the key to new discoveries

[nfoto]

The last 5 years or so I have been deeply committed to an Aquatic Plant Project financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Environment. Plain old-fashioned field botany skills are of course what is required in the sampling stages, and patience to extract oneself when sinking into subsurface bottoms or  sticky mud is a advantage as well. The photography later "only" calls for stamina and willingness to develop high-magnification setups. Having a large porch where I can keep my not-always-nice-smelling samples helps too.

 

Anyhow, all along I had ulterior motives as I saw the opportunity not only to collect the rarest and most elusive species in the country, but also could look into UV reflective photography (for the rather few species not having wind- or water-pollinated flowers), get familiar with aquatic ecosystems all over the country and their particularities, and last but not least, delve into stuff like finding parasitic fungi on my aquatics. Of the latter extremely little is know on the species present or their distribution.

 

The water-plantain Alisma plantago-aquatica is a common species thriving in a wide range of aquatic systems from nutrient-poor to the very nutrient (eutrophic) ones. There is a curious dwarf form of it in a lake not very far away from my home, so I tend to make a visit there every second year or so. The systematic position of this form is unsolved and in fact it might even represent another species, but the jury is still out on that issue. This autumn I availed myself of a long dry spell conveniently making water levels drop in that lake, so access to the plants was facilitated.

 

This is the dwarf Alisma on a laid dry lake floor. It occurs in a highly diversified plant community with many species at least one of them is endemic to Scandinavia.

 

 

(Alisma are the broad-leaved rosettes)

 

I had already found a smut fungus on Alisma in other locations. This smut, Doassansia alismatis, makes discoloured leaf spots in the late summer and autumn and within the leaf spots there are tiny spore balls embedded under the epidermis. The balls are 80-200 µm across, so just about discernable by the naked eye if you have 20/20 vision.

 

Here is a typical spore ball, in fact a really big one as the scale indicates. The large cells are epidermis ("skin") of the leaf.

 

 

Thus, when I found some leaf spots on the dwarf Alisma, I immediately considered this is a strange Doassansia. Strange, because the leaf spots were almost invisible and  in fact, although I spent a long time dissecting the leaf under my binocular microscope, I didn't see the now so familiar spore balls at all.

 

Curiouser and curiouser. I had but some small fragments of foliage left after the dissecting marathon., hence time to haul out the NEMO torches and have a look if there was something to be found and not only an optical illusion.

 

Her is what I got with UVIFL approach.

 

(scale with mm steps)

 

The brightly fluorescing spots were 1-2mm. I then very carefully scraped off the surface within a  few spots, stained the residue with Lactophenol Cotton Blue, and examined under the microscope. Again, no spore balls, but to my surprise there were masses of tiny, spindle-shaped conidia spores. So my enigmatic fungus was not a smut at all.

 

Here is what I observed at 1000X (100x/1.25 Oil objective),

 

 

(scale with 1µm steps)

 

Consulting the literature I quickly found this was Plectosphaerella alismatis (Oudemans) Phillips, Carlucci & Raimondo, 2012.

 

It belongs to the Ascomycetes: Fungi > Ascomycota > Pezizomycotina > Sordariomycetes > Glomerellales > Plectosphaerella > Plectosphaerella alismatis.

 

Never found in my country before. And I learned two important lessons, firstly not to believe I knew the answer before having obtained sufficient details, and secondly, that UVIVFL can really assist in discovering biological phenomena. I had never found this species without UVIVFL assistance.

[Stefano]

This makes me wonder how many things we could discover with UVIVF. Next time it may be a completely new species.

[photoni]

Very Good ! very precise and scientific, things from another planet.

[dabateman]

So some UVIVF patterns we may see, might just be due to fungus. 

Good to watch out for.

 

I am getting many new and interesting mushroom fruiting bodies in my yard. Fun times and some of them glow blue or red to the eye when hit with 365nm Nemo. They don't glow as well with 385nm flashlight. 

[Doug A]

Exciting stuff. Congratulations on discovering something never seen in your country. Would never have happened without your scientific and UVIVF expertise.  Are you going to search other areas to determine if it is wider spread?

Thanks for letting us in on your discovery,

Doug A

[Andrea B.]

Completely fascinating experiment/discovery. I've always wished I could have done work like this!