Insight on Fungi and the Protista

• What is the primary carbohydrate storage product of fungi?

  Glycogen
• What is the defining feature of the Chytrids within the Fungi? 

  Flagellum
• Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi belong to which Fungal phylum?

  Glomeromycota
• The fusion of 2 nuclei within the reproductive cycle of a fungus is termed?Karyogamy
• Asexual fungal spores may be termed?

  Anamorph
• What is a soredium?

  Fungus / alga association
• Protista as a taxonomic grouping are may best be described as...?

  Paraphyletic
• Plasmodium falciparum is an apicomplexan that causes which disease?


  Malaria
• Why is Dictyostelium discoidum an excellent model organism?

  Displays multicellular traits
• In which taxonomic grouping would you find the pathogen Trichomonas vaginalis?

  Both Excavata and Parabasalids
• •The primary carbohydrate storage product of fungi is glycogen (cf. starch in plants).
• •Presence of ergosterol in membranes.
• •A eukaryotic, heterotrophic organism devoid of chlorophyll that obtains its nutrients by absorption, and reproduces by spores.
• •Most fungi have a mycelium composed of hyphae (sing. hypha) that elongate by tip growth. Contain chitin – N containing polysaccharide
• •“Fungi” refers to the organisms in the Kingdom Fungi, the true fungi, also called the “Eumycota”
• •Fungi are heterotrophs and absorb nutrients from outside of their body
• •Fungi use enzymes to break down a large variety of complex molecules into smaller organic compounds
• •The versatility of these enzymes contributes to fungi’s ecological success
• •Apart from Chytrids have no flagella / motility so must be proximal for sexual reproduction.
• Opisthokonta includes true fungi (Eumycota) and multicellular animals (Metazoa), as well as  Microsporidians
• Animals and fungi share several key gene insertions and deletions.
• Animal and fungal cells also share a structural feature distinguishing them from protists.
• Fungi, animals, and their protistan relatives form the opisthokonts clade
• ITS = Internal Transcribed Spacer –

  non-functional but easily amplified due to

  High copy number.
• Kingdom Fungi can be broken down into 4 major phylums:

  • Zygomycota
  • Basidiomycota
  • Ascomycota
  • Deuteromycota
• •Many molds and yeasts have no known sexual stageMycologists have traditionally called these
• Chytridiomycota (chytrids)

  Flagellated spores
• Zygomycota ( zygote fungi)

  Resisant zygosporangium as sexual stage
• Glomeromycota (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi)

  Arbuscular mycorrhizae formed with plants