Lecture 14: Fungi Flashcards
What are fungi?
- Eukaryotes that are more closelyl related to animals than plants
- Decomposers and symbionts
- Frequently mutualistic symbiosis
Why are fungi important?
- fungal mutualisms are very important for plants to obtain nutrients and protect plants from herbivores
- animals participate in fungual mutualisms as well
- nutrient cycling
Why do people care about fungi?
- disease
- essential for crop growth
- important in crop spoilage
- food source
- antibiotics
- bread, beer, cheese, etc.
- industrial enzymes
What evidence proves fungi are more closely related to animals than land plants?
- Fungal infections in humans are more difficult to treat than bacterial infections
- Key traits linking animals and fungi include:
1. DNA sequence data
2. both synthesize chitin
3. Flagella are similar
4. Both store flucose as glycogen
What are the relationships among the major fungal groups?
- Glomeromycota is monophyletic
- Basidiomycetes (club fungi) are monophyletic
- Ascomycetes (sac fungi) are monophyletic
- Basidiomycota and ascomycota form a monophyletic group (they both form septate hyphae and large “fruiting” structures
- Sister group to fungi comprises animals plus choanoflagellates
What are the two growth forms of fungi?
- Single celled yeasts
- Multicellular, filamentous mycelia
What are the advantages and disadvantages of mycelia being made of hyphae?
Advantages ->
- Fungi have highest surface area to volume ratio of all multicellular organisms
- Nutrient absorption is extremely efficient
Disadvantages ->
- Prone to drying out
- More abundant in moist environments
- reproductive spores are resistant to drying out and can endure dry periods then germinate
What does it mean that all mycelia are dynamic?
They constantly grow in the direction of food sources and die back in areas where food is running out
Mycelia are an adaptation that supports external digestion and the absorptive lifestyle of fungi
What are the reproductive structures of fungi?
What divides the hyphae into compartments?
Fungi produce dense, fleshy reproductive structures
The hyphae are separated by septa. Pores allow materials to flow between compartments.
What is coenocytic?
Coenocytic means that they lack septa (fungi).
- Many nuclei are scattered throughout the mycelium
- Nutrients can move rapidly through septa pores or through coenocytic fungi from uptake to growth areas
What are the key stages of the chytrid life cycle?
- Haploid adults from gametangia (mitosis produces swimming gametes)
- Gametes fuse to form a diploid zygote
- The zygote grows into a diploid sporophyte
- Haploid spores, which disperse by swimming, are produced by meiosis inside the sporophyte’s sporangium
There is no heterokaryotic stages
Gametes (sexual) and spores (asexual) have flagella. The only known motile fungal cells.
How do zygomycetes reproduce?
What is zygosporangia?
Zygosporangia are distinctive spore-producing structures of zygomycetes
- They are formed from fusion of cells from joined-together haploid hyphae from two individuals
How do basidiomycetes reproduce?
- Basidiomycetes produce mushrooms as their sexual reproductive structures
- All basidiomycete reproductive structures originate from the dikaryotic hyphae of mated individuals
- The club-like, spore-producing cells, called basidia form at the ends of dikaryotic hyphae
- Karyogamy occurs within the basidia
What are basidia?
Basidia are formed by basidiomycetes. They are specialized club-like cells at the ends of hyphae.
Each basidium produces four spores.