Nia vibrissa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Nia vibrissa | |
|---|---|
 | |
| N. vibrissa | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Basidiomycota |
| Class: | Agaricomycetes |
| Order: | Agaricales |
| Family: | Niaceae |
| Genus: | Nia |
| Species: | N. vibrissa |
| Binomial name | |
| Nia vibrissa R.T. Moore & Meyers | |
Nia vibrissa is a species of fungus in the order Agaricales. The species is adapted to a marine environment and is a wood-rotting fungus, producing small, gasteroid basidiocarps (fruit bodies) on driftwood, submerged timber, mangrove wood, and similar substrates. The spores have long, hair-like projections and are widely dispersed in sea water, giving Nia vibrissa a cosmopolitan distribution.
Nia vibrissa was originally described in 1959 from submerged wood off the coast of Florida. The Latin epithet "vibrissa" (meaning "bristly") refers to the hair-like appendages on the spores. It was initially thought to be a deuteromycete (an asexual or mould-like fungus),[1] but was subsequently found to be the sexual state of a basidiomycete, one of the few such known from the marine environment.[2] Since its fruit bodies are enclosed and its spores are passively released, Nia vibrissa was considered to be a gasteromycete and was placed in its own family within the Melanogastrales, a now obsolete order of terrestrial false truffles.[3]
DNA sequencing has since shown that the species is actually related to species of cyphelloid fungi and agarics within the Agaricales.[4]