Isolation and environmental study of ‘wild’ Serpula lacrymans and Serpula himantioides from the Himalayan Forests

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We report the first successful culturing and confirmation of identity (via sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, SDS–PAGE) of Serpula lacrymans (the dry rot fungus) derived from basidiomes and mycelia growing in the ‘wild’. The fungus was found growing on well decayed coniferous wood within the Narkanda region of the Western Himalayas at between 2800 and 3100 m above sea level (a.s.l.). The ‘wild’ habitat of the fungus is described, as is the isolation of Serpula himantioides also found in these regions. Temperature, osmotic potential, initial pH and air-current influenced the average colony extension rate of ‘wild’ and a selection of building isolates on 2% malt extract agar. The ‘wild’ and building isolates behaved as two separate cohorts; the ‘wild’ isolates appeared to be less affected by extremes of temperature, whereas building isolates extended more rapidly at the moderate microenvironmental regimes.

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    Fruit body size varies from a few centimeters to more than a meter in diameter and it has been calculated that 5 × 108 spores can be produced by a 1 m2 fruit body during 10 min (Falck, 1912). During the last 10 y, numerous genetic studies of S. lacrymans have been conducted (Engh et al., 2010a, 2010b; Kauserud et al., 2006a, 2006b, 2007; Palfreyman et al., 2003; Skrede et al., 2011; White et al., 1997, 2001). In this review we sum up this research with a main emphasis on the evolutionary origin, phylogeography and population genetics.

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