Blue stain fungi infecting an 84‐million‐year‐old conifer from South Africa

Life in the woods: Taphonomic evolution of a diverse saproxylic community within fossil woods from Upper Cretaceous submarine mass flow deposits (Mzamba Formation, southeast Africa)

“…Although probably fungal in origin, we note that these radiating tufts have some gross similarities to certain abiotic (biomimetic) structures illustrated by Klymiuk et al (2013, Fig. 2B, E). The third form has been identified as a blue stain fungus, i.e., within Sordariomycetes (Ascomycota) (Strullu-Derrien et al, 2021a). The fourth form is more problematic; it resembles the third form, but lacks obvious septa and can not be assigned to any particular fungal group with confidence.…”

“…Blue stain fungi have been described recently from Dammaroxylon sp. wood from the Mzamba Formation (Strullu-Derrien et al, 2021a). These wood-colonizing fungi (Ascomycota) do not destroy lignocellulose, but often hasten the death of trees attacked by insects.…”

“…Their spores are commonly dispersed by bark beetles and other wood-inhabiting insects (Peris et al, 2021). The fungus in Dammaroxylon colonizes the ray parenchyma cells, which implies that the substrate for the fungus is carbohydrates and other nutrients within the cytoplasm of living cells (Strullu-Derrien et al, 2021a). This means that colonization by blue stain fungi occurred when the tree was alive.…”

Fossils of parasitic fungi

“…Septate fungal hyphae present in silicified Agathoxylon (Araucariaceae) wood from the Upper Cretaceous (˜84 Ma) of South Africa have been compared with blue-stain fungi colonizing the wood of present-day Pinus strobus (Strullu-Derrien et al ., 2022). They represent the first documented evidence of these wood-colonizing Ascomycota in the geological record.…”