Photography

The Blue Frost

Kirthi Kiran Yadagiri & Karthikeyan Pasupathy

Vegetative cells of Labyrinthula terrestris (causative agent of rapid blight disease in turfgrass) spreading out from an infected turfgrass blade.

The Blue Frost  by Kirthi Kiran Yadagiri & Karthikeyan Pasupathy

Labyrinthula terrestris is a newly identified organism which causes a disease known as “Rapid Blight” in cool-season turfgrasses. Rapid blight has been reported as a major problem on turf recently. The vegetative cells of this organism move in groups by forming a net-like extracellular slimy matrix, which is secreted by a special organelle called bothrosome. As related members of this organism form web- or labyrinth-like patterns in their movement, their genus is named as Labyrinthula. All the species in this genus are found in marine ecosystems except L. terrestris (Labyrinthula terrestris), which is a terrestrial inhabitant. The evolutionary reason for this terrestrial inhabitance is still a mystery. This special kind of locomotion through net-slime enables this organism to spread rapidly from infected plants to healthy plants. The mechanism behind this strange locomotion is still under investigation. To study it, we embedded an infected turfgrass blade (rod-like structure in the photograph) on an agar plate. The network spreading out from the turfgrass is the vegetative L. terrestris. The blob-like structure is an agar plug. Since the sample was almost transparent, blue light was used to illuminate the sample for maximum contrast. The photograph was captured using a DSLR camera under macro mode and further processed using Adobe Photoshop.

7
powered by OrangeCoat