Fascinating World of Fungi: Kingdom Characteristics and Classification

1. FUNGI

2. Fungi Kingdom Characteristics • Eukaryotes. • Heterotrophs • Cell walls made of chitin • Use spores to reproduce. • Need warm, moist places to grow. • Examples: yeast, molds and mushrooms.

3. Obtaining Food • Digest food outside of their bodies then absorb it by using hyphae • Hyphae: threadlike tubes. (Shape of fungi depends on how hyphae used) • Exception is yeast which are unicellular. AND...

4. How Hyphae Work! • Fungus grows hyphae into food • Hyphae secrete digestive chemicals into food • Hyphae absorb decayed food

5. Reproduction in Fungi • Produce thousands of spores with a protective covering (carried by water and air) • If spores land in a warm, moist place they grow.

6. When moisture is plentiful, fungi reproduce asexually by releasing the spores or hyphae break off and grow on their own. • Reproduce sexually by fusing of hyphae, making new spores that are different from both parents.

7. Since yeast is unicellular, they reproduce by budding. A well fed cell grows from the body of the mother cell and breaks off from the mother.

8. Four Classifications of Fungi • Threadlike - produce spores in their threadlike hyphae (ex. Bread mold) • Sac - produce spores in structures that look like sacs (ex. Yeast)

9. Club - produce spores in structures that look like clubs (ex. Mushrooms) • Imperfect- those that cannot reproduce sexually (ex. Penicillin)

11. Phylum ZygomycotaBread Mold • Hyphae include: Rhizoids (root like) and stolons (stem like) • Sexual reproduction is by conjugation (fusing) of hyphae from two different strains, followed by the production of Zygospores.

13. Zygomycota Sporangium: Produces the spores Sporangiophore: Holds up the sporangium

14. YUK!

15. Phylum Ascomycota(Sac Fungi) Cup Fungi, Yeast, Mildews • Named for the reproductive sacs or Asci that form near the tips of the hyphae. • Ascospores formed here and released into air when the ascus ruptures. • These spores germinate to form new hyphae.

17. Cup Fungi

20. Phylum: Basidiomycota(Club Fungi) • Mushrooms, Puffballs, Shelf (Bracket) Fungi • Underground hyphae intertwine and grow upward to produce a reproductive structure called a basidiocarp = a mushroom • Basidiospores are produced on the basidia, found on the edges of the gills.

22. Gills: produce spores

23. Boletes: tubes instead of gills Tubes (not gills) produce spores

24. Chanterelles: vase-shaped Gills

25. Elfin Saddle

26. Puff Balls

27. Shelf Fungi

28. Phylum Deuteromycota (Imperfect Fungi) • Athlete’s Foot, Ringworm, Penicillium • Called “imperfect” because a sexual reproductive stage has not been observed.

29. Penicillium: source of penicillin

30. Athlete’s Foot

31. Ringworm

32. Ringworm

33. Lichens • Mutualistic relationship between fungi and algae • Alga provides food, fungus provides water and a physical environment/home • Can be used as an air pollution detector

34. The Lichens life cycle has 3 stages 1. Crustose (appears grainy)

35. 2. Foliose (flat and leafy)

36. 3. Fruticose(old man’s beard…Spanish moss)

37. Many Fungi are involved in Mycorhizzae (symbiotic mutualism) relationships…Over 90% of plants have fungi associated with their roots. The fungus absorbs and concentrates phosphates for delivery to the plant roots. In return, the fungus receive sugars synthesized by the plant.