Enlarge / The story of a conquest: The fruiting physique of a parasitic fungus erupts from the physique of its sufferer. (credit score: Roberto García-Roa/CC BY 4.0)
The hanging {photograph} above vividly captures the spores of a parasitic “zombie” fungus (Ophiocordyceps) as they sprout from the physique of a bunch fly in beautiful element. Small surprise it received the 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution picture competitors, featured together with eight different honorees within the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. The successful pictures have been chosen by the journal editor and senior members of the journal’s editorial board. Per the journal, the competitors “offers ecologists and evolutionary biologists the chance to make use of their creativity to have fun their analysis and the intersection between artwork and science.”
Roberto García-Roa, an evolutionary biologist and conservation photographer affiliated with each the College of Valencia in Spain and Lund College in Sweden, snapped his award-winning {photograph} whereas trekking via a Peruvian jungle. The fungus in query belongs to the Cordyceps household. There are greater than 400 completely different species of Cordyceps fungi, every focusing on a selected species of insect, whether or not or not it’s ants, dragonflies, cockroaches, aphids, or beetles. Take into account Cordyceps an instance of nature’s personal inhabitants management mechanism to make sure that eco-balance is maintained.
Based on García-Roa, Ophiocordyceps, like its zombifying kin, infiltrates the host’s exoskeleton and mind through spores scattered within the air that connect to the host physique. As soon as inside, the spores sprout lengthy tendrils known as mycelia that ultimately attain into the mind and launch chemical compounds that make the unlucky host the fungi’s zombie slave. The chemical compounds compel the host to maneuver to probably the most favorable location for the fungus to thrive and develop. The fungus slowly feeds on the host, sprouting new spores all through the physique as one closing indignity.
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