Sometimes a photograph is actually a matter of life, dying — and zombies.
This haunting picture, winner of the 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution pictures competitors, definitely matches that description. It captures the fruiting our bodies of a parasitic fungus, rising from the lifeless physique of an contaminated fly within the Peruvian rainforest.
The fungus-infested fly was one in all many pictures submitted to the competition from everywhere in the world, aiming to showcase the fantastic thing about the pure world and the challenges it faces. The journal revealed the winners August 18.
Sign Up For the Latest from Science News
Headlines and summaries of the most recent Science News articles, delivered to your inbox
Thank you for signing up!
There was an issue signing you up.
Roberto García-Roa, a conservation photographer and evolutionary biologist on the University of Valencia in Spain, took the profitable photograph whereas visiting the Tambopata National Reserve, a protected habitat within the Amazon.
The fungus erupting from the fly belongs to the genus Ophiocordyceps, a various assortment of parasitic fungi referred to as “zombie fungi,” as a consequence of their skill to contaminate bugs and management their minds (SN: 7/17/19).
“There is still much to unravel about the diversity of these fungi as it is likely that each insect species infected succumbs to its own, specialized fungus,” says Charissa de Bekker, an professional in parasitic fungi at Utrecht University within the Netherlands.
First, spores of the fungus land on the ill-fated fly. So begins the manipulative endgame. The spores infiltrate the fly’s exoskeleton earlier than infecting its physique and ultimately hijacking its thoughts. Once in management, the fungus makes use of its new powers of locomotion to relocate to a microclimate extra appropriate to its personal development — someplace with the suitable temperature, gentle and moisture.
Fungus and fly then bide their time till the fly dies, turning into a meals supply for the fungus to devour. Fruiting our bodies work their method out of the fly, full of spores which can be launched into the air to proceed the macabre cycle in a brand new, unsuspecting host. It is a “conquest shaped by thousands of years of evolution,” García-Roa mentioned in an announcement asserting the winners.
Research into the molecular facets of fungal thoughts management is below method, De Bekker says, together with in her personal lab. “These fungi harbor all sorts of bioactive chemicals that we have yet to characterize and that could have novel medicinal and pest control applications.”