Scientists find a new species of fungus -- in a wasp nest

Mucor nidicola species previously unknown to science

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. – While some researchers look for new species in such exotic places as the deep sea, tropical regions, or extreme environments, a team headed by Tufts researchers turned their attention towards nests of an invasive paper wasp. What they found was a new species of fungus.

Philip T. Starks, associate professor of biology at the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, and doctoral student Anne A. Madden published their discovery in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. The news appeared online September 19, 2011, in advance of print.

"We found the fungus in a wasp nest near the dumpsters at Tufts University," says Madden, of the discovery. The research team set out to explore a new environment for novel species of bacteria and fungi—single-celled organisms that inhabit most places in the world. Despite there being more bacterial species in the world than stars in the sky, scientists have only described approximately 10 percent of the species thought to exist, says Madden.

Attempts to identify species are hindered by the difficulty scientists encounter when working with organisms so small that hundreds of thousands can fit on the period at the end of this sentence.
These wasps often build nests on houses, trash containers and other familiar structures. "Nests of the invasive species of paper wasps had never been investigated for their microbial community," says Madden. "This is despite the wasp's cosmopolitan distribution and their frequent use as a model system in the field of animal behavior. Because researchers know so much about this host wasp, we thought it would be particularly valuable to characterize the microbes of the nest."

The scientists took samples from active nests and placed them in a nutrient-based medium as one would plant a garden with a handful of unknown seeds to see what grows. The researchers grew a number of different fungi and used genetic sequencing techniques to tease apart species identities. They found that one fungus had a unique gene sequence that suggested it had not previously been characterized.

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