Generally 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 among many pictures submitted to the competition from all around the world, aiming to showcase the great thing about the pure world and the challenges it faces. The journal revealed the winners August 18.
Roberto García-Roa, a conservation photographer and evolutionary biologist on the College of Valencia in Spain, took the successful picture whereas visiting the Tambopata Nationwide 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,” attributable to their capacity to contaminate bugs and management their minds (SN: 7/17/19).
“There may be nonetheless a lot to unravel concerning the variety of those fungi as it’s possible that every insect species contaminated succumbs to its personal, specialised fungus,” says Charissa de Bekker, an skilled in parasitic fungi at Utrecht College 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 finally hijacking its thoughts. As soon as 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 fitting 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 means out of the fly, crammed with spores which can be launched into the air to proceed the macabre cycle in a brand new, unsuspecting host. It’s a “conquest formed by 1000’s of years of evolution,” García-Roa mentioned in an announcement asserting the winners.
Analysis into the molecular facets of fungal thoughts management is beneath means, De Bekker says, together with in her personal lab. “These fungi harbor all types of bioactive chemical compounds that we now have but to characterize and that would have novel medicinal and pest management purposes.”
