Study
The captured launch of a ballistospore
Pringle, Anne; Patek, S. N.; Fischer, Mark; Stolze, Jessica; Money, Nicholas P.
Mycologia, 2005
Ultra-high-speed video was used to capture the moment a basidiospore leaves its sterigma — an event lasting microseconds that had been inferred for a century without ever being seen.
- Studied in
- Auricularia auricula, Basidiomycota
- Sample size
- spore discharges filmed at up to 100,000 frames per second
A droplet of water condenses at the base of the spore, then abruptly merges with a film on the spore surface. The sudden shift in the combined centre of mass, driven entirely by surface tension, flings the spore clear at accelerations on the order of 10,000 g.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Ballistospore discharge is powered by surface tension released in a coalescing droplet, one of the fastest movements known in nature relative to size.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the mechanism that makes the whole gilled-mushroom body plan make sense. The gills hold spores millimetres apart in still, humid air; the launch has to be violent enough to clear the gill surface and gentle enough not to overshoot into the opposite gill. Surface tension delivers exactly that, and it explains why mushrooms fruit in damp conditions — the mechanism will not fire in dry air, because there is no droplet to condense.
- Filmed in a handful of species; discharge mechanics vary across basidiomycete groups.
- Laboratory humidity is controlled in a way a forest floor is not.
- Says nothing about what happens to a spore after the first millimetre of travel.
Filming a spore leave the gill
How does a mushroom throw a spore off its gill, in an event too fast and too small for anyone to have seen?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Wiley journalsPublished in a Wiley journal.
doi.org/10.1080/15572536.2006.11832777
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-10.