Dactylellina haptotyla is a common soil-living fungus that develops structures to capture nematodes as nutrient source.
In the presence of nematodes, spores can germinate into sticky knobs or non-constricting loops.
In 1999, the carnivorous fungi of Orbiliaceae has been reclassified based on rDNA and β-tubulin datasets.
[5] The other trapping structure, non-constricting loop, is constructed by three cells which elongate from stalk and fuse back to base.
In some cases, the struggle may be so violent that the nematode can escape and detach the knobs or loops from stalks.
Evolutionary, this assist the Dactylellina haptotyla to migrate to new sites and explore food sources.
Although the nematode-attractant has not been identified, a common hypothesis is the nematode-trapping fungus are able to release pheromones to attract nematodes.
Moreover, the transcription pattern of sticky knobs shows similarities with appressoria of plant pathogenic fungi like Magnaporthe grisea and Blumeria graminis.
[8] Approximately 40% of nematodes were paralyzed after four hours, and 372 gene clusters are upregulated only during this stage of infection.
[4] In 1998, Jaffee, Ferris and Scow[11] compared the population of nematode-trapping fungi in conventional and organic systems.
A conventional system was soil plots that were fertilized by inorganic matters and grown with cover crop every four year.
The organic system was soil plots that were treated with manure and grown with cover crop every year.
In general, nematode-trapping fungi prefer to colonize on cellulose and lignin substrates with low nitrogen content.