The First Report on a Moss-Fungus Association from Egypt PDF

Keywords

fungus, moss, Egypt

Abstract

An association between the discomycete fungus Byssonectria tetraspora (Berk.) Rogerson and Korf and the moss Bryum argenteum Hedw. is reported. described and illustrated. This is the first report of such an association from Egypt. Associations between mosses and fungi are briefly discussed. Any work, however preliminary, on the association between different organisms owes much to earlier works on the subject, particularly those of Schwendener (1860), De Bary (1879) and Schimper (1883). Schwendener (1860) was able to give an accurate account of the internal dual structure of several lichens. De Bary (1879) was the first to propose the term "Symbiosis" to describe the intimate relationship between different species. His collective term included parasitic. mutualistic and all other states of interrelationships. Concepts pertaining to the separate origin and development of the parts (mitochondria. plastids... ) of eukaryotic cells and their association to form the whole have been dealt with in detail by Margulis (1981) who mentioned that this particular story of the eukaryotic cell evolution had been dubbed the " Serial Endosymbiotic Theory" by Taylor (1974) and that perhaps the earliest scientific idea that cell organelles came from hereditary symbiotic associations was that published in 1883 by Schimper. Literature on symbiosis is, at present. enormous and the foregoing hint would suffice for the present paper which pertains to a moss-fungus association. Mosses form associations with several organisms belonging to all kingdoms (Monera, Protoctista, Fungi. Plantae and Animalia). Examples of such associations have been described by El-Saadawi and Abou-El- Kheir (1973), Richardson (1981) and Abou-El-Kheir et al. (1986). Fungi, on the other hand, form associations with an enormous number of organisms, again covering all kingdoms including their own. Lichens, endomycorrhizae and ectomycorrhizae are among the most familiar examples of such associations. The focus here is on fungal-moss association. In this connection Dennis (1968) listed over 25 species of fungi that grow in association with mosses, of which he named 15 genera. More recently. Ellis and Ellis (1988) listed some 70 species of fungi that grow on or with bryophytes. Among these. they identified about 40 species, belonging to 35 genera. In this communication an association between a fungus and a moss is reported for the first time from Egypt.