Fungi BFI

• Fungi can reproduce asexually by producing haploid spores through mitosis and forming visible mycelia
• Moulds produce haploid spores by mitosis and can colonize different sources of food
• Yeasts reproduce asexually by simple cell division and pinching of "bud cells" from a parent cell
• Some fungi can grow as yeasts and as filamentous mycelia
• Many moulds and yeasts have no known sexual stage and are traditionally called deuteromycetes or imperfect fungi
• Fungi propagate themselves by producing vast numbers of spores, either sexually or asexually
• Fungi produce spores through sexual or asexual life cycles
• The ancestor of fungi was an aquatic, single-celled, flagellated protist
• Fungi propagate themselves by producing vast numbers of spores, either sexually or asexually
• Fungi can produce spores from different types of life cycles
• Fungi, animals, and their protistan relatives form the opisthokonts clade
• Fungi are most closely related to unicellular nucleariids
• Ascomycetes (phylum Ascomycota) characteristics:
• Live in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats
• Animals are most closely related to unicellular choanoflagellates
• Produce sexual spores in saclike asci contained in fruiting bodies called ascocarps
• Fungi and animals are more closely related to each other than they are to plants or other eukaryotes
• Include unicellular yeasts to elaborate cup fungi and morels
• Fungi have radiated into a diverse set of lineages
• Include plant pathogens, decomposers, and symbionts
• Chytrids are found in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats and can be decomposers, parasites, or mutualists
• Chytrids are unique among fungi in having flagellated spores called zoospores
• More than 25% of all ascomycete species live with green algae or cyanobacteria in beneficial symbiotic associations called lichens
• Some ascomycetes form mycorrhizae with plants
• Some live between mesophyll cells in leaves and release toxic compounds that help protect the plant from insects
• Zygomycetes include fast-growing moulds, parasites, and commensal symbionts
• Neurospora crassa, a bread mould, is a model organism with a well-studied genome
• Zygomycetes produce haploid spores through asexual sporangia
• Reproduce asexually by enormous numbers of asexual spores called conidia
• Conidia are produced asexually at the tips of specialized hyphae called conidiophores
• Zygomycetes are named for their sexually produced zygosporangia
• Zygomycetes can survive unfavorable conditions through resistant zygosporangia
• Basidiomycetes (phylum Basidiomycota) characteristics:
• Defined by a clublike structure called a basidium, holding the transient diploid stage in the life cycle
• Glomeromycetes nearly all form arbuscular mycorrhizae and have a mutualistic partnership with approximately 80% of land plants
• Glomeromycetes push into plant root cells for exchange in arbuscular mycorrhizae
• Include mushrooms, puffballs, shelf fungi, mycorrhizae, and plant parasites
• Reproduce sexually by producing elaborate fruiting bodies called basidiocarps
• Geosiphon pyriforme forms a 'siphonal bladder' and has an endosymbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria for nutrient exchange
• Mushrooms are examples of basidiocarps