Fig. 3

Experimental evidence that autophagic recycling of the fungal cultivar’s own cellular material mediates gongylidium formation. Gongylidium density was significantly inhibited when L. gongylophorus was grown on potato dextrose agar supplemented with either autophagy inhibitor, chloroquine (CQ, n = 28) or 3-methyladenine (3-MA, n = 30), relative to control (PDA, n = 40) and an autophagy promoter rapamycin (RAP, n = 27). Representative Petri dishes with control (PDA; top) and inhibition (CQ; bottom) are displayed at the right; black outlines indicate the radial growth area of cultivars and white fungal clusters in the control are the staphylae. Different letters above the boxes indicate significant differences determined by a post-hoc Dunn’s pairwise test (p < 0.05) and horizontal bars indicate the distribution means