Figure 1.
Neurospora growing on the trunk of a burned tree.
Colonies of conidiating Neurospora are easily spotted by their orange color due to the accumulation of carotenoid pigments. The picture was taken in a garden in Seville (Spain) a few weeks after a summer fire in 2004 and is probably Neurospora crassa as all the samples taken from this site were later identified as belonging to this species.
Figure 2.
Identification of Neurospora species by phylogeny.
Maximum-Likelihood tree produced from the TMI, DMG and TML loci combined. Branch support values (Maximum-likelihood bootstrap proportions/Neighbor-Joining bootstrap proportions) in combined analyses are displayed for major branches only. The well-supported groups of individuals are indicated by triangles, with height proportional to number of individuals and width proportional to the mean number of changes from the node. Only bootstrap proportions greater than 50% are shown. The number of isolates in shown in parenthesis.
Figure 3.
Distribution of Neurospora species collected in Spain.
Table 1.
Distribution of species of Neurospora across sites in Spain.
Table 2.
Accumulation of carotenoids in species of Neurospora isolated from Spain.
Figure 4.
Activation by light of the albino genes in Neurospora species.
Quantitative RT-PCR experiments were performed to measure the relative accumulation of al-1 or al-2 mRNA in mycelia of wild-type strains exposed to white light (2 W/m2 blue light) or kept in the dark. The plots show the average and standard error of the mean of the relative mRNA accumulation in four independent experiments, each with three replicates. The results from each PCR for each gene were normalized to the corresponding PCR for tub-2 to correct for sampling errors and normalized to the result obtained with mycelia kept in the dark. The amount of carotenoids accumulated by each wild-type strain in cultures exposed to light is shown under each strain name. The initials describe each Neurospora species: Nc Neurospora crassa, Nt Neurospora tetrasperma, and Nd Neurospora discreta.
Figure 5.
A negative correlation between carotenoid accumulation and latitude.
Mycelia from each wild-type strain were exposed to light during one day and the amount of carotenoids measured. Each point represents the average amount of carotenoids obtained in two independent experiments and the latitude of the site where the wild-type strain was collected. The line shows the lineal regression for the 150 wild-type strains characterized (coefficient of determination R2 = 0.71).
Figure 6.
Survival of Neurospora conidia to UV radiation.
Conidia were exposed to UV radiation during different times or kept unirradiated as a control. Cell viability was assayed after plating irradiated and unirradiated conidia, counting the number of colonies after 2–3 days of growth, and comparing the number of colonies obtained with irradiated and unirradiated conidia. The plot shows the average and standard error of the mean of the percentage of survival to UV in three independent experiments. The amount of carotenoids accumulated by mycelia from each wild-type strain in cultures exposed to light is shown over each strain name. The color used for symbols and lines identify each Neurospora species. The latitudes and longitudes of the isolation sites for each strain are the following: C11A (42.74°, −8.62°), PO10A (42.46°, −8.50°), GC4-1A (27.88°, −15.56°), PO9C (42.46°, −8.50°), GC4-4C (27.88°, −15.56°), TF2-6A (28.37°, −16.65°).