Louisiana State University researchers announced on Apr. 9 the development of a new open-source tool called SkelPy, designed to help scientists track and analyze the growth patterns of gray mold, or Botrytis cinerea, a fungus known for infecting crops and produce.
Gray mold is a widespread pathogen that affects many plants and can cause significant agricultural losses. Understanding how this fungus grows and adapts to its environment is important for developing better ways to protect crops from infection.
Melanie Madrigal, a graduate student in the LSU Department of Biological Sciences working in Jordan A. Dowell’s lab, described gray mold as “a highly pervasive pathogen that destroys many plants, crops, and postharvest produce.” She explained that while it can grow on nearly any living plant—especially those damaged by extreme weather—it is also easy to cultivate under warm and humid laboratory conditions.
The study of hyphal networks—the branching structures fungi use to spread—has traditionally been difficult due to the need for manual tracing in images. Madrigal said she faced challenges after taking thousands of photos of growing hyphal networks but did not know how best to analyze them efficiently. With help from Jenna Moseley and Aaron Moseley, who had experience with image analysis and coding, the team developed SkelPy as a solution.
SkelPy is described as a free Python-based tool with a graphical interface that converts microscope images into simplified skeletons of fungal networks without disturbing samples. It detects hyphal edges in photographs so researchers can measure growth rates and network density over time more quickly than before. “What previously took us several hours of manual tracing of hyphae per sample, SkelPy can do in minutes,” Madrigal said.
The team hopes other scientists will use SkelPy not only for studying fungal growth but also for analyzing similar branching systems such as plant roots. The tool has already demonstrated its ability to distinguish between invasive fast-growing strains of gray mold and slower ones.
