Sharing information on social media can lead to completely unexpected results. Despite the fact that, for many, Twitter is the window par excellence of the ‘grumpy’ ( haters ); This social network has also shown added value: serving as a tool for science, and even helping to find a new species. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen Natural History Museum of Denmark have just found a new type of parasitic fungus via Twitter. And, you ask, how is this possible?
It all started when biologist and associate professor Ana Sofía Reboleira, from the National Museum of Natural History, scrolled through her Twitter timeline. There, he came across a photo of a North American millipede shared by his American colleague Derek Hennen of Virginia Tech. Then Reboleira’s trained eyes saw something that had previously gone unnoticed: strange little white dots.
This is how the researcher tells it in a press release: “I could see something similar to fungi on the surface of the millipede. Until then, these fungi had never been found on American millipedes. It was then that my partner and I went down to the museum’s collections and started digging ”.
Together with his colleague Henrik Enghoff, he discovered several specimens of the same fungus in some of the American millipedes in the huge collection of the Museum of Natural History, fungi that had never been documented before. This confirmed the existence of a new species of Laboulbeniales , an order of small, strange and largely unknown fungal parasites that attack insects and millipedes. The newly discovered parasite has been given its official Latin name, Troglomyces twitteri , in honor of the social network that made its discovery possible.
Reboleira believes that social networks play an increasingly important role in the investigation: “As far as we know, this is the first time that a new species has been discovered on Twitter. It highlights the importance of these platforms to share research and, therefore, to be able to achieve new results. I hope it motivates professionals and professionals. Amateur researchers share more data through social media. This is something that has become increasingly obvious during the coronavirus crisis, a time when many are prevented from going to the fields or laboratories. “
What do we know about these parasites?
Laboulbeniales fungi resemble tiny larvae, and about 30 different species of parasites of this type attack millipedes. The vast majority of these were not discovered until 2014. According to Reboleira, a large number will most likely remain undiscovered: research in the Laboulbeniales area remains extremely scarce.
These fungi belong to a class of their own because they live on the outside of host organisms, and even on specific parts of the bodies, in this case, on the reproductive organs of millipedes. The fungus absorbs nutrition from its host animal by piercing its outer layer using a special suction structure.
Nor is much known about its own biology. Reboleira believes that these fungi can not only teach us a lot about the insects on which they live, but also about the mechanisms behind the parasitism itself, that is, the relationship between the parasites and their hosts. As a consequence, in addition, we can also learn a lot about other parasites that attack human health.
References:
The research was carried out by Sergi Santamaría, from the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain; and Henrik Enghoff and Ana Sofía Reboleira from the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen; and the research results are published in the scientific journal ‘MycoKeys’.
