Fungal spores travel farther by surfing their own wind
Sunday, October 3, 2010 - 22:40
in Physics & Chemistry
Many fungi, including the destructive Sclerotinia, spew thousands of spores at once to give the spores an extra boost into their host plants. Researchers now show how this works. The near-simultaneous ejection of spores reduces drag to nearly zero and creates a wind that carries some of the spores 20 times farther than a single spore could travel solo.