Predtic .ftingii? 



Q. You talked about Dactylellas that form constricting rings and 



sticky knobs. Apparently the nanatode trapping apparatus does 

 not enter into the classification picture. Is this so? 



A. No, the nematode trapping .apparatus is in coiumon with various 



genera, and one cannot distinguish the traps from each other morpho- 

 logically, except in a few cases. tVere you to show me any culture of 

 a fungus with constricting rings, I could not tell what genus it is 

 without seeing the spores. The same thing holds for those fungi with 

 networks. 



Q. How often do you find nematodes in nature attacked by these fungi's 



A. Well, as for observations firsthand in nature, I cannot answer you. 

 My observations are always secondary, in that I put the material in 

 agar. I have, on one or two occasions, gone out into the field with a 

 microscope to try and examine material directly for predacious fungi, 

 but 1 have never had any luck. I also tried to develope a technique 

 for making microscopic preparations of soil in situ and have found pre- 

 dacious fungi in the soil actually capturing eelwormc. As far as I 

 know, that is the only labor from nature. 



Q. At the Salt Lake City station, we have over 36,000 specimens of 



nematodes, and there are less than a dozen that have fungi attack- 

 ing them. They are practically unheard of in that district. Perhaps 

 this is due to our soil conditions. 



A. Yes. Personally, I think it probable that, in the soil, the fungi 



do not bother much about the eelworms, unless they are stimulated 

 to go to the predacious mode of feeding. 



Q. Have you noticed in your work that any organisms attack the pre- 

 dacious fungi in the cultures? 



A. No, I have never observed anything attacking predacious fungi. 



However, I have noticed that they ares, in many cases, sensitive to 

 antibiotics. 



Q. I would like to ask, if there were any nematodes in nat\ire attacked 



by fungi, would you recover them by the standard nematological 

 techniques? It seems to me that they would be washed out or settle out. 



A. I think that is exceedingly likely. I think also that the tech- 

 niques of soil microbiologists are such that these fungi are not 

 recovered. If you go one step less than the agar plate method I spoke 

 of, and simply bring nematodes into the laboratory, leaving them in a 

 dish with sterile water, many of the fungi can be obtained. Apparently, 

 nematodes come into the dishes already infected with these fungi, which 

 begin to grow at the expense of the nematodes' tissues. 



Q, I have one observation that is related to what was just said. In 



