Cordyceps
Dolls - core lobe ( Cordyceps militaris )
The genus Cordyceps belongs to the ascomycetes ( Ascomycota ). Cordyceps species parasitize arthropods ( Arthropoda ) and form pale or light-colored fruiting bodies with fleshy stromata.
The type species is the puppet - core lobe ( Cordyceps militaris ).
Features
Macroscopic characteristics
The parasitic fungi grow through the host, and first form a subiculum, from the then collecting fruiting bodies, called stromata grow. These and the subiculum are pale or light pigmentation and fleshy. The actual, small fruiting bodies, the perithecia are superficial to completely sunk in the stroma.
Microscopic characteristics
The colorless and cylindrical tubes have thickened tips. The colorless and cylindrical spores formed therein are septate several times and fall into part spores or not. They rarely have the spindle-shaped ends of a thread-like structure.
Ecology
Cordyceps species attack larvae or pupae of various insects in the leaf litter, mosses or upper soil layers. For example, the spread in Europe dolls - core lobe occurs on dead caterpillars larger butterflies. Species that infect deer truffles, throughout the genus Elaphocordyceps be assigned now.
Systematics and distribution
The first description of Cordyceps was in Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link: Manual for the detection of nutzbarsten and most abundant plants, 1833, p 346 The type species is the puppet - core lobe ( Cordyceps militaris ). They initially contained all the core lobes which were characterized by their parasitic lifestyle on insects or deer truffles and their fleshy or stalked fruiting bodies. But Phylogenetic studies showed a division into three clades.
The genus Cordyceps S. L. is worldwide, except on Antarctica. In Europe, only a few species occur or are expected there: Nadelsporige core lobe ( Cordyceps bifusispora ), Cordyceps memorabilis, puppet - core lobe ( Cordyceps militaris ), crooked core lobe ( Cordyceps tuberculata ). All other types of nuclear lobes were assigned to the genera Elaphocordyceps or Ophiocordyceps.
A number of nuclear lobes still require molecular genetic analysis to assign unambiguously the three splinter classes Cordyceps s.str. , Elaphocordyceps and Ophiocordyceps. The following already studied taxa belong to the genus Cordyceps in the strict sense: