Out standing TA award

Clark Fest 2023

Every spring Clark hosts “Clarkfest”, which is a celebration of undergraduate research. My undergraduate research student, Laila El-Samra presented a poster on nematode-trapping in Agaricales. Nematophagy is well-established in Pleurotaceae (oyster mushrooms and relatives), but there are also reports that Stropharia rugosoannulata (“winecaps”) and Coprinus comatus (“shaggy manes”) are able to trap and consume nematodes. Both of the latter species produce interesting structures on their mycelia that have been interpreted as nematode-trapping devices (see panels a and b over Laila’s left shoulder, which are from in S. rugosoannulata and C. comatus, respectively). We found out that there is no evidence for nematode-trapping in Coprinus and Stropharia. The question now is, what (if anything) are those structures for?

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