Lab updates September 2025

I spent a night in Zoutelande and collected several epigeous gasteromycetes in the coastal forests behind the dunes. Among others, I found two specimens of Myriostoma coliforme, a rare fungus that is added in several national Red Lists (and once considered extinct in the UK).

Myriostoma coliforme, the saltshaker earthstar (or pepper pot). A beautiful observation from Zoutelande in the Netherlands for #FunDive. 🍄🧂🇳🇱

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— Dr. Danny Haelewaters 🏳️‍🌈🍄🪰🦇🔬🧬 (@dhaelewa.bsky.social) August 31, 2025 at 3:55 PM

PhD student Libelje Mortier submitted her first first-author paper, the checklist of fungi for Honduras, to a peer-reviewed journal. Very happy to see this out of the door. This work was initiated by my Master student Ruben Vanhoomissen (who is second author of the paper) back in 2022.

Michiel de Groot‘s paper on the effect of abiotic factors on parasitism of Harmonia axyridis by Hesperomyces harmoniae is accepted in Ecological Entomology! We were interested how temperature and humidity affect prevalence, rate of development, and parasite load using laboratory experiments. This was a huge study that was conducted by Michiel and my Master student Brianna Santamaria in the laboratory of Oldřich Nedvěd at the University of South Bohemia in 2022 and 2023.

We have a new lab member since this week: Marília Pereira Rodrigues de Melo is a PhD student at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Brazil and will be working in the #TeamLaboul group at Ghent University for five months. 

Finally, I am still wrapping my head around the name for my lab (or should I say labs). The lab at the Biology Centre CAS in České Budějovice is named Laboratory of Fungal Ecology and Evolution (LFEE), also referred to as the Haelewaters Lab. I am also spearheading the #TeamLaboul group with members at Ghent University and Biology Centre CAS. I need an organizational chart to figure out how these entities (?) interact with each other. I know—it’s just names, but I keep thinking about it.