The Fungi Kingdom

Question 1

What is the key difference between plants and fungi?

Answer 1

Fungi do not photosynthesize

They are heterotrophs

Question 2

What supergroup does fungi belong to?

Answer 2

Unikonta supergroup, same as animals

Question 3

What is the common ancestor of Fungi and Animals?

Answer 3

likely a unicellular protist with flagella

Question 4

What are chytrids?

Answer 4

one fungi group that still produce spores with flagella

Question 5

What is the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi?

Answer 5

plants colonized land 470 millions years ago, but fungi could have helped by softening mineral surfaces

Question 6

How do fungi absorb nutrients?

Answer 6

Externally, by secreting enzymes into their environment and absorbing broken down nutrients through their cell wall and plasma membrane

Question 7

Since fungi digest externally, what kind of feeders can they be?

Answer 7

decomposers (dead material)
parasites or pathogens (live material)
mutualists

Question 8

Which structure of the fungi is responsible for nutrient absorption?

Answer 8

Hyphae

network in the ground, the main body of the fungus

Question 9

What are hyphae?

Answer 9

tiny filaments that consists of cells surrounded by cell walls
cell walls are made of chitin to prevent bursting since cells are very hypertonic, constantly

Question 10

What is mycelium?

Answer 10

interwoven mass of the network of Hyphae, which is the main body mass of multicellular fungi

Question 11

What is the reproductive structure?

Answer 11

often the visible region of the fungi, which releases reproductive spores after either sexual or asexual reproduction

Question 12

What are spores?

Answer 12

Haploid (n) cells that are released into air or water, millions at time, to develop into full mycelium

Question 13

What can fungi not do?

Answer 13

migrate

Question 14

Which stages of fungi reproduction are often temporary?

Answer 14

the diploid (2n) stages

Question 15

Describe sexual reproduction.

Answer 15

Plasmogamy: fusion of cytoplasm into the heterokaryotic stage
Karyogamy: fusion of nuclei into a diploid zygote
Meiosis: gives rise to spores
Germination: spores turn into mycelium
Mycelium continue sexual reproduction or into asexual reproduction

Question 16

Describe asexual reproduction.

Answer 16

Spores of Haploid (n) cells go through mitosis and germinate

Question 17

What is yeast?

Answer 17

single-celled fungi

can be generalists, decomposers, mutualistic, or pathogenic

Question 18

What are decomposers?

Answer 18

breakdown dead material
they ensure ecosystems are stocked with essential minerals, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other elements that would be locked up in dead matter
w/o them, life would lack of atomic material

Question 19

What are pathogens/parasites?

Answer 19

absorb food from living hosts
parasites don’t kill the host, but weaken and harm it
pathogens can ultimately kill their host

Question 20

What is mutualism?

Answer 20

relationship where both species benefit

often absorb food from living host, but the fungi reciprocates by providing some benefit to the host

Question 21

What is Mycorrhizae?

Answer 21

mutualistic fungi that interact in root systems

Question 22

What are Arbuscules?

Answer 22

Hyphae that will infiltrate the root cells of plants, and absorb nutrients/sugar

Question 23

What can fungi do for plants?

Answer 23

breakdown and deliver phosphate, nitrogen, minerals, which most plants cannot do with much efficiency

Question 24

What is Lichen?

Answer 24

mutualistic relationship between algae or cyanobacteria and fungi
provides carbon sugars for food and energy

Question 25

What are practical uses for fungi?

Answer 25

recycling nutrients within the ecosystem
baking (S. cerevisiae)
Antibiotics (Penicillium for Penicillin)

Question 26

What are Chytrids?

Answer 26

Earliest fungi to evolve
spores have flagella
zoospores are thus motile, requiring water
live in lakes, wet soils, moist areas
are decomposers, parasites, and mutualists

Question 27

What are Zygomycetes?

Answer 27

mainly terrestrial
food molds: like bread mold, Rhizopus
are decomposers, parasites, and mutualists
uses both sexual and asexual reproduction
reproductive structures are zygospores (form when two haploid hyphae fuse into a structure called the Zygosporangium)

Question 28

What are Glomeromycetes?

Answer 28

mainly terrestrial

are mutualists: Arbuscule Mycorrhizae

Question 29

What are Ascomycetes?

Answer 29

mainly terrestrial
are decomposers, parasites, and mutualists
includes yeast
asexual and sexual
reproductive structures are ascospores which form in a sac called an Ascus
very diverse

Question 30

What are Basidiomycetes?

Answer 30

mainly terrestrial
mainly decomposers, some parasites and mutualists
reproductive structures are Basidia (grow along strips of tissue called gills on the underside of the mushroom, where basidiospore form.