MYCOLOGY 2 - FUNGI AND ENVIRONMENT Flashcards
what are the two main strategies that fungi use to spread?
use wind to carry their spores away and also animals to carry and transport the spores
so that they can exploit new environments
how do fungi attract animals to them?
stinkhorn fungus:
can grow up to 10 inches
fruiting body emerges with big force, it can break asphalt (3 mushrooms lift 400kg)
produces a sticky spore mass that smells like rotting meat
this attracts insects that will carry away the store
how do fungi control animals?
fungi takes over cicadas
infection leads to a loss of abdomen and infertility
this makes the males behave like females
the males land on the other males acting like females and the infection spreads, they pick up spores
what are the stages of mastering the wind to transport wind?
- spore formation
- spore release
- spore transport
how do basidiomycetes produce their spores?
- two hyphae join and create a third one with mixed genetic material
- undergoes mitosis, makes the fruiting body
- the fruiting bodies form diploid nuclei
- meiosis happens, and four basidiospores are formed
- the spores then spread
usually no asexual sporulation
how do fungi increase the amount of spore dispersion?
increase their surface area and elevation
increase SA with gills, pores or folds
how are basidiospores released?
a drop (Buller’s drop) starts to swell outside of the spore
it eventually contacts the spore water drop
when the two drops enter in contact, the surface tension is enough tension to catapult the spores away
this is all calculated so that spores do not smash into each other
how do fungi master the wind when they release their spores?
water evaporation cools the air underneath the fungi, up to 5 degrees celcius less than the outside environment
this heavy cold hair falls down with the spores in it, and when it exits the underneath fungi area it becomes hot again and rises
then the wind can take spores miles away
what is ascomycete life cycle
what are the three types of ascocaprs?
what is an example of a fungi that does not need wind to disperse its spores?
pilobolus sp.
zygomycetous fungi (primitive, the hyphae are not septated)
lives in cow stomachs
shoot their spores away like guns
how can fungi wipe out entire species from the surface of the earth?
after the asteroids hit the dinosaurs, there was a lot of dead bodies, so fungi grew a lot, a lot of stuff to decompose
the dinosaurs have no thermoregulation, so they were affected by fungi
mammals have thermoregulation and fungi cannot grow at 37°C so they survived
example of how fungi are contributing to a mass extinction event currently
this event is targeting amphibians
Bh and Bsal are chytrids that belong to the zoosporic fungi (most primitive)
one of the most dangerous invasive species
kill by disrupting the skin function which leads to cardiac arrest
the fungi originates from asia but does not affect the frogs there
through international trade, spores were transported to other areas and the fungi spread and started affecting other frogs
close to 100 species are already extinct
most dangerous threat to biodiversity
how is the extinction of these frogs affecting human health?
frogs eat mosquitoes, which protects us from diseases carried by mosquitoes such as malaria
this leads to an increase in malaria cases
what is dutch elm disease?
beetle lays eggs in the tree and the larva eat the tree
this is manageable at the forest state, but the beetle + the blue stain fungus causes a widespread infection
3 main species of blue stain fungus do the damage
the fungi colonize the phloem and feed on the sap, leading to pine tree death (mainly in BC and alberta)
the trees turn red instead of green
