Insects visit <i>Fusarium xyrophilum</i> pseudoflowers on the host <i>Xyris surinamensis</i> (Xyridaceae) and carry fungal DNA on their bodies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract The fungus Fusarium xyrophilum produces flower-like structures (i.e., pseudoflowers) that were recently discovered on yellow-eyed grasses ( Xyris spp.) in Guyana. It is unknown whether these pseudoflowers, which are composed entirely of fungal tissue, are true mimics that attract insects as a means of fungal dispersal. We evaluated the potential of F. xyrophilum to affect insect visitation patterns to flowers and pseudoflowers by 1) documenting insect visitation to X. surinamensis in Guyana, 2) measuring the presence of F. xyrophilum DNA on insects, and 3) evaluating fluorescence and volatile production on flowers and pseudoflowers. We report for the first time Vespidae, Formicidae, Salticidae, Acrididae, and Tetrigidae visiting Xyris . Diverse insects, including Conocephalini spp. (meadow katydids; Tettigoniidae), Camponotus spp. (carpenter ants; Formicidae), and a Geometridae sp. (geometer moths) were found to visit flowers and pseudoflowers. Fusarium xyrophilum DNA was detected on 3/12 (25%) of captured insect bodies using conventional and quantitative PCR. Volatiles produced in the field by pseudoflowers and flowers were similar, except for the presence of a sesquiterpene, putatively identified here as α-gurjunene, which was detected both in F. xyrophilum pure cultures and field-collected pseudoflower samples, but not from flowers. The production of this sesquiterpene by F. xyrophilum and the fluorescence of X. surinamensis peduncles represent potential signals involved in insect attraction for this system. These observations, along with the overlap in insect visitors of flowers and pseudoflowers and the detection of F. xyrophilum DNA on insect bodies, are consistent with insect visitors being vectors of Xyris pollen and F. xyrophilum propagules between host plants.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".