Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
From a primary school workshop: a mystery arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus in mystery plant. Sometimes fun to have no information about what you are looking at 🚸
#outreach #mycosky #fungi

Firstly: the Mycorrhiza Relay Race 🌻🍄
A two-player game, fungus and plant partners alternate turns, navigating a maze to find nutrients or growing leaves to catch sunshines, respectively. Fastest team wins!

Photo: Festival of Plants 2025, after 4hrs of relay races...

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Just a particularly pretty arbuscule in a rice root cell colonised by the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis, with a cool view down an intercellular hypha. Stained with WGA-Alexafluor488, imaged by CLSM, false-coloured by depth in root 🔥

#microscopy #mycosci #fungi

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Been looking at the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Gigaspora margarita this week. Not only does it form ENORMOUS spores, but also bunches of knobbly 'auxiliary cells'.
Can't find a description of auxiliary cell function anywhere...does anyone know what they do?
#mycosci #fungi

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Some chunky hyphae and arbuscules of the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis, running along the length of a rice root. Coloured by depth in the root.
#mycosky #fungi #microscopy

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Roots are busy places... here's a rice root packed with mycorrhizal fungal arbuscules 🔬

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
No rice this week: instead a beautiful arbuscule formed by native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (identity unknown) within a Plantago root. This animation takes you through a z-stack 🔬

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Neighbouring arbuscules formed by the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis. Makes the rice root look like an apartment block full of fungal inhabitants 🌃🌇

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Some chunky hyphae of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis forming fungal pipelines inside a rice root. Coloured by depth in the root 🔬

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
View through the 3D structure of an arbuscule. This is in a rice root cell colonised by the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis 🔬

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
I spend most days looking at arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in rice roots. But here is some maize for a change 🌽🌽🌽 a root cortical cell hosting a young arbuscule, stained with WGA-Alexafluor488 and imaged by confocal microscopy

Mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄
Enjoying looking at some different arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species thanks to @mvanderheijden.bsky.social. This is a rice root colonised by coils and arbuscules of Paraglomus laccatum, stained with trypan blue.

First "mid-week #mycorrhiza 🍄" post since migrating to Bluesky!
And coincides with writing up a paper featuring lots of live-imaged arbuscules. So here's one example: confocal micrograph of a rice root colonised by the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis, coloured by depth 🔬