Abstract
Myxomycetes are organisms characterized by a life cycle that includes a fruiting body stage. Myxomycete fruiting bodies contain spores, and wind dispersal of the spores is considered important for this organism to colonize new areas. In this study, the presence of airborne myxomycetes and the temporal changes in the myxomycete composition of atmospheric particles (aerosols) were investigated with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based method for Didymiaceae and Physaraceae. Twenty-one aerosol samples were collected on the roof of a three-story building located in Sapporo, Hokkaido Island, northern Japan. PCR analysis of DNA extracts from the aerosol samples indicated the presence of airborne myxomycetes in all the samples, except for the one collected during the snowfall season. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of the PCR products showed seasonally varying banding patterns. The detected DGGE bands were subjected to sequence analyses, and four out of nine obtained sequences were identical to those of fruiting body samples collected in Hokkaido Island. It appears that the difference in the fruiting period of each species was correlated with the seasonal changes in the myxomycete composition of the aerosols. Molecular evidence shows that newly formed spores are released and dispersed in the air, suggesting that wind-driven dispersal of spores is an important process in the life history of myxomycetes. This study is the first to detect airborne myxomycetes with the use of molecular ecological analyses and to characterize their seasonal distribution.
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Acknowledgments
We thank H. Hagiwara and Y. Kasahara for discussions or comments; Y. Higashioka, M. Fujii, M. Tsutsumi, and T. Nishi for assistance with field collections of fruiting body samples; M. Kobayashi, N. Tsubonuma, and K. Okuzawa for the help of aerosol sampling. We thank the Nopporo Forest Park, Hokkaido, Japan for permission to collect materials. This work was supported by a grant of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to M.F. (16370014). The experiments comply with the current laws of the countries in which they were performed.
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Kamono, A., Kojima, H., Matsumoto, J. et al. Airborne myxomycete spores: detection using molecular techniques. Naturwissenschaften 96, 147–151 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0454-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0454-0