''Bruceomyces'' is a fungal

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

in the family Bruceomycetaceae, containing the single species ''Bruceomyces castoris''.

Taxonomy

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus, ''Bruceomyces'' contains the single species ''Bruceomyces castoris''. ''Brucea'' is the original name of ''Bruceomyces'', published by Finnish mycologist Jouko Rikkinen in 2003. Rikkinen and colleagues renamed the genus in 2012 after it was discovered that ''Brucea'' was a junior homonym of a plant genus. The generic name honors lichenologist

Bruce McCune Bruce Pettit McCune (born 1952) is an American lichenologist, botanist, plant ecologist, and software developer for analysis of ecological data. Biography McCune grew up in Cincinnati. He completed his freshman year of college at Lawrence Univers ...

(b.1952), who studied western North American lichen flora. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''castoris'' means "beaver", "which play an important role in the ecology of resinicolous fungi in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

". The family Bruceomycetaceae was

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

to contain ''Bruceomyces'' as well as '' Resinogalea'', another resinicolous (

resin In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on natu ...

-loving) fungus.

Description

Consisting of a rounded protuberance (the capillitium) at the end of a straight or curved thin brownish-black stalk, the

fruit body In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the Ovary (plants), ovary after flowering plant, flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their ...

ranges from 0.8 to 3 mm tall. The capillitium is typically 0.20–0.31 mm in diameter, while the stalk thickness is 85–135

μm The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Unit ...

. The thick-walled

asci ASCI or Asci may refer to: * Advertising Standards Council of India * Asci, the plural of ascus, in fungal anatomy * Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative * American Society for Clinical Investigation * Argus Sour Crude Index * Association of ...

(spore-bearing cells) are club-shaped, measuring 15–20 by 7–9 μm, set upon stalks that are 20–25 μm. Spores are pale brown, ellipsoidal, and measure 7.0–8.3 by 4.4–5.1 μm. The spore walls have longitudinal wrinkles that can be visualized with

light microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

Paraphyses Paraphyses are erect sterile filament-like support structures occurring among the reproductive apparatuses of fungi, ferns, bryophytes and some thallophytes. The singular form of the word is paraphysis. In certain fungi, they are part of the fe ...

are 2.5–3.5 μm thick and have thick

septa The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five coun ...

(cross-walls). ''Bruceomyces castoris'' is a calicioid fungus, meaning that it releases a powdery spore mass (the mazaedium) on the surface of the

apothecium An ascocarp, or ascoma (), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. Ascocarps are ...

Habitat and distribution

''Bruceomyces castoris'' was isolated from the

sap Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separa ...

and chewed wood found in

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

teeth scars at the base of living grand fir trees in a wooded area by a

beaver pond A beaver dam or beaver impoundment is a dam built by beavers to create a pond which protects against predators such as coyotes, wolves and bears, and holds their food during winter. These structures modify the natural environment in such a way th ...

in Polk County, Oregon. Other trees in the area included

Douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three va ...

(''Pseudotsuga menziesii''), Oregon maple (''Acer macrophyllum''), and

red alder ''Alnus rubra'', the red alder, is a deciduous broadleaf tree native to western North America (Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana). Description Red alder is the largest species of alder in North A ...

(''Alnus rubra'').

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4978530 Lecanorales Lecanorales genera Taxa described in 2012