Publications by authors named "J W Spatafora"
Article Synopsis
- The text discusses a new species of mushroom from the Boletales order, found in temperate forests, specifically at Marys Peak in Oregon, which is unique for being hypogeous (growing underground) unlike other related species.
- This species has distinctive features, such as a white peridium that turns pink to purple when bruised and a gleba that changes color from pale yellow to purple as it matures.
- Molecular analysis confirms this mushroom’s classification within a specific group, indicating a unique evolutionary development in the Boletales, demonstrating an independent origin for its underground growth and a shift to its current host environment.
The clade contains oleaginous yeast species with advantageous metabolic features for biochemical and biofuel production. Limited knowledge about the metabolic networks of the species and limited tools for genetic engineering have led to a relatively small amount of research on the microbes. Here, a genome-scale metabolic model (GSM) of NRRL Y-11557 was built using orthologous protein mappings to model yeast species.
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- Herptiles, including reptiles and amphibians, are facing significant endangerment, prompting various conservation efforts to ensure their recovery, yet little is known about their gut microbiomes and how it impacts their health.
- This study examines the gut microbiome of various herptiles, revealing that bacterial communities differ based on host species and are influenced by geographical factors, with fungi also significantly present in these microbiomes.
- The findings suggest that interactions between fungi and bacteria could play a role in shaping the gut microbiome, potentially driven by unique metabolic functions resulting from horizontal gene transfer, highlighting the importance of these microbial relationships in herptile conservation efforts.
Molecular phylogenetic and chemical analyses, and morphological characterization of collections of North American specimens support the description of two new species and two new combinations for known species. is a pathogen of (Orthoptera) from the Pacific Northwest USA and is a pathogen of cicadae (Hemiptera) from the Southeast USA. New combinations are made for and based on morphological, ecological, and chemical study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe first genome sequenced of a eukaryotic organism was for , as reported in 1996, but it was more than 10 years before any of the zygomycete fungi, which are the early-diverging terrestrial fungi currently placed in the phyla and , were sequenced. The genome for was completed in 2008; currently, more than 1000 zygomycete genomes have been sequenced. Genomic data from these early-diverging terrestrial fungi revealed deep phylogenetic separation of the two major clades-primarily plant-associated saprotrophic and mycorrhizal versus the primarily mycoparasitic or animal-associated parasites and commensals in the .
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