Hi everyone, I have lied to you all due to my lack of research.
The organism that I have photographed is not a Turkey Tail. My organism is actually a false Turkey Tail. This is a common mistake. According to the article that I read, the underside of the fungus is what actually gives it away(Bergamin 2013). I did say in my Blog post 1 that I did not get a good picture of the underside, so I zoomed into a picture that I took. Indeed, the underside of my organism is smooth and does not contain visible pores. Please see below for images.
The scientific name of false turkey tail is Stereum ostrea
You can watch this 34 second video to get a better explanation of how to tell true turkey tail apart from fake turkey tail:
Belonging to the Phylum Basidiomycota.
False Turkey Tail is a saprophyte. Saprophytes refers to organisms that obtain nutrients from decomposing/decaying matter.
False Turkey tail can be considered single-celled or multicellular when it is in the form of a spore. The fruiting body showed in my blog is the sexual form and multicellular form. This is referred as Dimorphism. If you’re dimorphic then you are able to go from a microscopic yeast form to a macroscopic mycelial form. We humans are not dimorphic. LOL. I wish.
A unique feature of fungal cell structure is Chitin!
There cell wall can be composed of chitin, mannan and glucan.
Beta-glucans are also found in the cell wall of fungal cells, they are made up of sugars.
Their plasma membrane consist of ergosterol instead of cholesterol (what we got).
The false turkey tail is also non-motile therefore it has no locomotive structures.
Genome Size: 46.51 Mega-base pairs (Floudas et al. 2012).
A fun fact of S. ostrea, is that they produce a gene that codes for lignolytic enzymes. I am not sure what genes that is. However, the cool feature about lignolytic enzymes is that my organism uses these enzymes to catalyze the reaction of breaking down lignin. Lignin is found in cell walls of wood, bark and even plants! (Velmurugan and Incharoensakdi 2018).
The fruiting body of my organism can range from 1-5 cm. The shape of my organism appear as frosted flakes. I say this because a flake has an irregular shape such as my organism. A flake is also thin. The spores are generally measured in micrometers.
Cool features of the false turkey tail are the colors. The colors on each “tail” can range from yellow, brown, tan, reddish and even green (Kuo 2008).
References:
- Kuo, M. (2008, December). Stereum hirsutum. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/stereum_hirsutum.html
- Floudas D, Binder M, Riley R, Barry K, Blanchette RA, Henrissat B, Martinez AT, Otillar R, Spatafora JW, Yadav JS, Aerts A, Benoit I, Boyd A, Carlson A, Copeland A, Coutinho PM, de Vries RP, Ferreira P, Findley K, Foster B, Gaskell J, Glotzer D, Gorecki P, Heitman J, Hesse C, Hori C, Igarashi K, Jurgens JA, Kallen N, Kersten P, Kohler A, Kues U, Kumar TK, Kuo A, LaButti K, Larrondo LF, Lindquist E, Ling A, Lombard V, Lucas S, Lundell T, Martin R, McLaughlin DJ, Morgenstern I, Morin E, Murat C, Nagy LG, Nolan M, Ohm RA, Patyshakuliyeva A, Rokas A, Ruiz-Duenas FJ, Sabat G, Salamov A, Samejima M, Schmutz J, Slot JC, St John F, Stenlid J, Sun H, Sun S, Syed K, Tsang A, Wiebenga A, Young D, Pisabarro A, Eastwood DC, Martin F, Cullen D, Grigoriev IV, Hibbett DS
The Paleozoic origin of enzymatic lignin decomposition reconstructed from 31 fungal genomes.
Science. 2012 Jun 29;336(6089):1715-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1221748. - Bergamin, A. (2013, November). How Can You Tell a True Turkey Tail from an Imposter? Retrieved from web site: https://baynature.org/2013/11/28/can-tell-true-turkey-tail-imposter/
- Velmurugan, R. and Incharoensakdi, A (2018). Nanomaterials in Plants, Algae, and Microorganisms. Retrieved from web site: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/lignin