Chapter 24
Fungi
By Boundless
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Fungi, latin for mushroom, are eukaryotes which are responsible for decomposition and nutrient cycling through the environment.
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Fungi are unicellular or multicellular thick-cell-walled heterotroph decomposers that eat decaying matter and make tangles of filaments.
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Fungi can reproduce asexually by fragmentation, budding, or producing spores, or sexually with homothallic or heterothallic mycelia.
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Fungi are the major decomposers of nature; they break down organic matter which would otherwise not be recycled.
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Members of Kingdom Fungi form ecologically beneficial mutualistic relationships with cyanobateria, plants, and animals.
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Chytrids are the most primitive group of fungi and the only group that possess gametes with flagella.
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Zygomycota, a small group in the fungi kingdom, can reproduce asexually or sexually, in a process called conjugation.
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Most fungi belong to the Phylum Ascomycota, which uniquely forms of an ascus, a sac-like structure that contains haploid ascospores.
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The basidiomycota are mushroom-producing fungi with developing, club-shaped fruiting bodies called basidia on the gills under its cap.
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Phylum Deuteromycota is a polyphyletic group of asexually-reproducing fungi that do not display a sexual phase; they are known as imperfect.
Glomeromycetes are an important group of fungi that live in close symbiotic association with the roots of trees and plants.