Fungi

Campbell, Chapter 31

Even though mushrooms stick out of the ground, fungi are not like plants. Especially, fungi are heterotrophic
Fungi usually filaments, except yeast; heterotrophs, chitin cell walls, sometimes parasitic, otherwise saprobic or mutualistic.
Reproduction by budding, fragmentation of hyphae (rows of cells), or spores

TRANSPARENCY Fig. 31.1 - mycelium (mushroom shown here, most underground, reproductive part emerges quickly above ground when it is moist. Composed of strands (hyphae).

TRANSPARENCY Fig. 31.2 shows hyphae including haustorium which penetrates into parasitized cells. This picture also shows the fungus that is predatory to a nematode (a round worm, covered later in the "lower" animals)

TRANSPARENCY (Fig. 31.3) Generalized life cycle of fungi

Zygomycota "zygote fungi" ex: Rhyzopus - bread mold
Life cycle TRANSPARENCY Fig. 31.7
States: Haploid, diploid, dikaryotic
Processes: Plasmogamy & karyogamy

Ascomycota (sac fungi reproduce by spore sacs)
8 ascospores in ascus are neatly arranged for genetic "tetrad analysis."
Life cycle TRANSPARENCY Fig. 31.10
Morels & truffles
Neurospora - genetics
Chestnut blight
Dutch elm disease
Rye - ergot - hallucinations related to LSD

Basidiomycota "club fungi"
Life cycle TRANSPARENCY Fig. 31.12
Mushrooms (Agaricus) the reproductive structure is above ground, the rest is under ground
Corn smut
wheat rust
Poisons (Psilocybin)

"mold" refers to asexual stage (but they can also reproduce sexually)
Imperfect fungi - reproduction is asexual
Ringworm, Athlete's foot - parasites
Fungi predatory to nematodes - Fig. 31.2
Roquefort Camembert cheese, Brie
Penicillium Here is a picture, from the Microbe zoo (like Fig. 31.14)
(Antibiotic - 1928 Alexander Fleming found mold killed bacteria, later, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain developed)

Mycorrhizae (Zygomycota, Ascomycota or Basidiomycota) w/ roots of 80% of vascular plants
TRANSPARENCY (from a latr chapter) (Fig. 36.8)
Plants - absorption of water and nutrients

Yeasts Ascomycota, Basidiomycota or Deuteromycota
Saccharomyces brewers & bakers yeasts ascomycota
Candida problem in AIDS
vaginal infections

TRANSPARENCY Fig. 31.15 Lichens mutualism (or controlled parasitism) of fungus and algae

Here is an interesting web site for the North American lichen project

SLIDES landsat of Virginia
surviving chestnust
Truffles oak root pigs (and people) smell them out (SLIDE) - Fig 31.17
SLIDE fairy ring
tree shelves SLIDE - like Fig. 31.9b
SLIDE - fungi can be beautiful

SLU's Biology department's "mycologists," Drs. Keath and Kennell, are both molecular biologists specializing in fungal pathogenesis

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this page was last updated 1/7/02