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All fungi are eukaryotic heterotrophs like animals but are often confused with plants.
Fungi and animals share more recent common ancestors than they do with plants.
Fungi are very crucial in ecosystems and economies. Bacteria are Earth's major decomposers and cause many biosphere nutrient cycling. Fungi are also in crucial symbiotic bonds with plants, which are almost all helped by them for nutrients from soil or plants disappear.
biosphere: region on/above/below the surface for life
wood preservation product bucket
Benefits and harms
Benefits and harms
Harmfulness: Not all fungi are helpful, causing many plant diseases, with a dramatic impact on natural plant populations and crops. A staggering 10% to 50% of the world's fruit harvest is destroyed per year.
Some tree species almost went extinct due to accidental new fungi.
They also rot wood and damage buildings but are prevented by wood preservatives, but are toxic compounds with environmental impacts.
Usefulness: All mushrooms and truffles have fungi, also used to make blue cheese, soy sauce, bread, and alcoholic drinks.
Beer/wine multibillion industries rely on fungi to turn grains and grapes into alcohol. Non-food products we get from fungi include some valuable drugs.
It's also for non-food products: penicillin, a type of anti-bacterial medication, among the most crucial antibiotics made from Penicillium chrysogenum fungi.
Classification and phylogeny
Classification and phylogeny
Fungi aren't plants, with almost nothing common with them except being sessile (stationary) multicellular eukaryotes, many growing on grounds, are not photosynthetic, and fungi don't produce their food.
Their cells are unlike plant cells and fully another way to reproduce.
Even Linnaeus classified them as plants in his two-kingdom system. Fungi are known to form their clade, sharing a common ancestor from 400 million years ago.
Chytridiomycota (chytrids): Only fungi with swimming spores Most are saprophytes Single or multi-celled
Zygomycota (zygomycetes): Include some familiar bread and fruit moulds Most are soil fungi Many are insect parasites Many used commercially
Characteristics
Characteristics
Fungi are usually an organism's tiny part, its reproductive structure growing out. Most of its body is often underground.
Hyphae
Hyphae
The bird nest fungus has reproductive structures looking like bird nests. Each "eggs" contain spores. Raindrops splashing into the "nest" push the eggs out of the nest and disperse the spores. Cordyceps have similar reproductive form, are parasitic fungi of the phylum Asomcycota, and infect an insect, change its behaviour, forcing it to climb to a high stem, before killing it grow its reproductive structures on its body and release spores.
Hyphae (sing. hypha) are microscopic thin filaments making up the body of a fungus network branched into a mass called mycelium.
mycelium: a network of hyphae
They consist of long tubes of cytoplasm containing many nuclei. Each cytoplasm is contained by a cell wall made of chitin (complex chemical). Tubes may be separated into cell-like compartments by cell walls called septa.
chitin: thin filaments making up a fungus' body
Hyphae form the "fuzz" often associated with mould (Figure a) and the reproductive structures of many fungi, which take various forms, like puffballs (Figure b).
Hyphae also form reproductive structures
e.g. mature puffballs release millions of microscopic pores (b)
Fungi are heterotrophs differing from most
Nutrition
Nutrition
They digest externally, grow within, or next to, their food source, release enzymes to digest food, then absorb the nutrients through the hyphae's cell membrane.
Symbiotic relationships
Symbiotic relationships
Lichens
Lichens
Lichens, small mosses, are fungi symbiotic combinations and photosynthetic cyanobacteria or green algae. The fungi’s mycelium protects and supplies the cyanobacteria/algae with water and minerals and receive food in return.
They can also survive harsh places and are often the first to start the ecological succession process as they grow on bare rock.
Mycorrhiza
Mycorrhiza
Mycorrhiza is a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and a plant root Hyphae grow around/within the plant's root cells and supply the plant with needed nutrients like phosphorus and copper receive energy-rich food molecules in return.
Leaf-cutter ants
Leaf-cutter ants
Some fungi have a symbiotic relation with many leaf-cutter ants in tropical rainforests. The largest leaf consumers, they gather leaves, to be brought back to their colony and feed the fungi, instead of eating it themselves. The ants use body's bacteria to create chemical to kill other fungi species.
Life cycles
Life cycles
Unlike other eukaryotes the nuclei of most fungi are haploid (n).
Basidiomycete life cycle
Basidiomycete life cycle
Asexual phase since the process does not involve the fusion of gametes. The spores are haploid cells (n). Gametes are haploid cells. The process of meiosis is considered sexual reproduction and it produces 4 basidiospores which are each haploid (n).
Dikaryotic Cells are cells with 2 genetically distinct cell nuclei in the same cell that have not fused (n + n), a phase considered asexual.
The fusion of 2 haploid nuclei to form a zygote with a diploid (2n) nucleus is considered sexual reproduction.
Yeat cells reproduction
Yeat cells reproduction
Yeast cells are unicellular and can either reproduce asexually (by budding) or sexually.
When asexually: The nucleus divides
A septum forms between the two nuclei
A small daughter cell is formed on the side of the original yeast
When sexually: Yeast cells fuse forming a diploid cell that produces four haploid spores
Fungi diseases
Fungi diseases
Athlete's foot is a fungal infection of the skin that causes scaling, flaking, and itch of affected areas. It is caused by fungi in the genus Tricophyton typically transmitted in moist areas where people walk barefoot, such as showers.
Ringworm
Ringworm
Dermatophytosis/ringworm is a clinical condition caused by a fungal infection of the skin.
The fungi that cause parasitic infections feed on keratin, the material found in the outer layer of skin, hair, and nails.
Aspergillosis
Aspergillosis
Aspergillosis are a wide variety of diseases caused by fungi of the genus Aspergillus.
Most humans inhale Aspergillus spores each day.
Aspergillosis develops mainly in individuals who are immunocompromised.
immunocompromised: people with an impaired immune system.
It's fatal in people with acute leukemia
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