Segmented co-infection of tree bark by different fungus
Author and article information
Abstract
Co-existence of microbes in a community is the de facto state of microbial lifestyle in almost all niches on Earth. Thus, microbes live with other microbial species in close proximity, and evolution has selected for specific methods of communication between microbes that facilitated chemical cross-talk for understanding the identities of different microbes, and their relative antagonistic behaviour towards each other. Observation of different patches of dark and white on a tree bark highlights possible segmented co-infection of the bark with at least two different species of fungi. Although without clear boundary of separation between patches, antagonistic behaviour between the two species could not be ruled out. Other forms of interactions such as mutualism and symbiosis between the different fungal species could be elucidated with time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) profiling of the biomolecules and chemicals mediating the communication highway between the microbes, whose identities could be determined by 16S rRNA sequencing.
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2017. Segmented co-infection of tree bark by different fungus. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3239v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3239v1Author comment
This is a preprint describing an observation by the author.
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Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests. He works for Ng Ah Leng Polythene Trading.
Author Contributions
Wenfa Ng analyzed the data, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
Raw pictorial data are associated with this preprint.
Funding
The authors received no funding for this work.
