The first records of Rickia wasmannii Cavara, 1899, a myrmecophilous fungus, and its Myrmica Latreille, 1804 host ants in Hungary and Romania (Ascomycetes: Laboulbeniales; Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract

Rickia wasmannii CAVARA, 1899 (Ascomycetes: Laboul-beniales) obligately exploits ants (for a review on Laboul-beniales: WEIR & BLACKWELL 2005; and for one espe-cially on myrmecophilous species: HERRAIZ & ESPADALER 2007). The ants appear to be neutral to the presence of this fungus on their cuticules (A. Tartally, pers. obs.). Myrmica LATREILLE, 1804 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) species are reported to be the usual hosts of R. wasmannii (HERRAIZ & ESPADALER 2007). To the best of our knowledge, this fungus has not been reported previously from the Carpa-thian Basin. The occurrence of R. wasmannii was checked on 5788 Myrmica specimens from 580 colonies collected between 2001 and 2006 at 26 sites in Hungary and three sites in Transylvania, Romania (Fig. 1), and the density of the fungus on the different parts of the body of infected Myrmica specimens was estimated. The fungus was pres-ent on 353 infected ant specimens in 45 colonies at nine Hungarian and two Transylvanian sites (Fig. 1). Although 11 Myrmica species (M. gallienii BONDROIT, 1920; M. lobi-cornis NYLANDER, 1846; M. lonae FINZI, 1926; M. rubra (LINNAEUS, 1758); M. ruginodis NYLANDER, 1846; M. sa-buleti MEINERT, 1861; M. salina RUZSKY, 1905; M. scabri-nodis NYLANDER, 1846; M. schencki VIERECK, 1903; M. specioides BONDROIT, 1918 and M. vandeli BONDROIT, 1920) were involved in our work, only four of them (M. salina, M. scabrinodis, M. specioides and M. vandeli) were found to be infected. M. scabrinodis was the most common host, and M. salina was most heavily infected. The fungus was present on workers (Figs. 2 - 4) and dealate (old) queens, but not on males, alate (young) queens and larvae. How-ever, the numbers of males, alate queens and larvae exam-ined were small. Our results indicate that it is quite prob-able that R. wasmannii could be found at several other sites in the Carpathian Basin with a more intensive survey