Fungi, end of plants Flashcards
What is the largest organism?
Fungus.
What is the updated belief about the phenomenon behind the children acting crazy and causing the Salem With Trials?
That the kids were ingesting ERGOTS (grain in bread) infected by a fungus which produces the active component of LSD.
What are ringworms actually?
A fungus.
What type of “-troph” (eating behavior) are fungi?
Absorptive heterotrophs
What organism is a “saprobe” or “saprotroph”, and what do those terms mean?
Fungi are, and it means they are decomposers of other organisms.
What is it about fungi’s cell walls that makes them unique?
They are composed of chitin (normally found in insects) and glucans (normally found in plants).
What are the filaments that make up fungus called? What is the conglomeration of those filaments called?
Filaments = hyphae
Mass of hyphae = mycelium
What is a septa?
The porous bits of cell wall that almost close off the hyphae into multiple cells - but the pores are always open.
Which part of the fungus has a denser mycelium? the fruiting body or the absorptive structure?
The fruiting body.
What does “commensal” refer to?
A type of symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits from the presence of the other and the other has no effects.
What does “mycorrhiza” refer to? and how does it work?
A mutualistic association of fungus with plant roots.
The fungus provides minerals & water to the plant, the plant provides carbs to the fungus.
In an endo-mycorrhiza relationship, do the hyphae of the fungus grow through the cell walls of the plant roots?
Yes. But they stop there, they don’t go through the plasma membrane.
Which are older, mycorrhizae or vascular plants?
Mycorrhizae!
Lichens are the combination of fungus plus WHAT?
Cyanobacterium and/or unicellular green algae.
How do lichen reproduce, if they’re a combo of two organisms themselves?
Can either
- disperse together (hyphae of fungus + soredium of algae partner)
- hyphae of fungus disperses alone
Are spores multi or unicellular?
Unicellular
Spores can be generated asexually or sexually.
Where does the sexual (meiosis) reproduction happen on the fungus?
in the basidia of the mushroom gills.
What part of the fungus produces spores asexually? Think of a rotten orange. What characterizes the spores produced in this manner? What are the two key words of the asexual reproduction method?
In the sporangia. They are exposed to the air (“conidia”) at the tip of the hyphae.
“Budding” or “Fission”
About how many spores are present in 1m(3) of air? A. 1 000 B. 10 000 C. 500 D. 100 000
B. 10 000 spores per m(3)
In what organism did chitin first evolve?
In fungi! it later separately evolved in insects (animals)!
On a phylogenic tree, are fungi closer related to animals or plants?
Animals.
During what period did fungi flourish?
The Permian
There is a type of fungus that can belong to the zygo-, asco-, or basidiomyocota phylogenic groups. What is it?
Yeasts.
Why are yeasts useful in genetics?
They have plasmids.
Microsporidia have puzzled taxonomists. What are some 2 interesting characteristics of microsporidia?
- They lack mitochondria, but do have mitosomes (which are derived from mitochondria).
- They are obligate intracellular parasites (obviously extremely tiny)
What is the name of the fungus group that helps animals break down cellulose in their stomachs? What are some other characteristics of this group?
Chytrids.
- They are the only ones that have a motile phase (with flagellated gametes & spores)
- Some are saprobic, some are parasitic, some are mutualistic
- Truly alternating life cycle
- They’re killing frogs.
What fungal group is that nasty bluish grey mold on bread a part of?
Zygomycota
What type of life cycle do zygomycota have?
Haplontic (reduced diploid phase)
What is the phylogenic group of fungi that seems to be very good at forming arbuscular endomycorrhizae?
Glomeromycota
What type of fungi (which also produce “puffballs”) form ectomycorrhizae and are the only group to completely digest lignin?
Basidiomycota
Give 4 important characteristics of ascomycota.
- Their spores are “naked”, no sex organs.
- There are ~ 70k species and can be terrestrial or aquatic
- They’re responsible for molds and mildews, tree diseases, and half the lichens
- Their conidia are produced asexually in the hyphae.
What type of fungus is responsible for deadly white-nose syndrome in bats?
Ascomycota.
What is plasmogamy?
Fusion of cytoplasm from different individuals without NUCLEAR fusion. Creates a dikaryotic phase.
