ARS | Publication request: Cordyceps bassiana and production of stromata in vitro showing Beauveria anamorph in Korea

Submitted to: Mycobiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: February 1, 2006
Publication Date: March 31, 2006
Citation: Sung, J., Lee, J., Humber, R.A., Sung, G., Shrestha, B. 2006. Cordyceps bassiana and production of stromata in vitro showing Beauveria anamorph in Korea. Mycobiology. 34(1):1-6. DOI: 10.4489/MYCO.2006.34.1.001.

Interpretive Summary: This manuscript reports the collection in Korea of an insect-pathogenic fungus that appears to be extremely rare and little understood. The fungus is an ascomycete sexual state identified here as Cordyceps bassiana (although this identification is controversial) that produces a conidial state whose morphology is very similar to the very common fungus known throughout the world as Beauveria bassiana. The collection reported here is the first globally since the description of Cordyceps bassiana in China, and represents one of only very few individual insects that might have been affected by this fungus. The report is even more notable since it includes information about the induction in artificial culture of what appears to be fertile fruiting bodies of the sexual state of this fungus after growing the fungus from the asexual conidial state.

Technical Abstract: A Cordyceps species was found with Beauveria anamorph state on larval insect cadavers on Obong Mountsin in Gangwon Pronvince, Republic of Korea. Cultures from discharged ascospores formed an anamorph identifiable as Beauveria bassiana. This teleomorph-anamorph connection was also confirmed by the in vitro production of fertile ascomata from conidial cultures with morphology like that of field-collected specimen. This is the first report of in vitro production of a teleomorph for any Beauveria species. The Cordyceps species has been conspecified as Cordyceps bassiana, a species described from China with B. bassiana anamorph.