IV.

KINGDOM FUNGI

Kingdom fungi or Eumycota, are multicellular eukaryotic organism. They are found everywhere. The
study of fungi is mycology. The fungal body is composed of long filaments called hypae. There are
two kinds of hypae, the septate hypae where internal walls called septa separate the cells with each
cell having a nucleus and the coenocytic hypae where there are no septa and several nuclei are
found in common cytoplasm. The cell wall of fungi is made of tough, flexible carbohydrate called
chitin. Fungi are heterotrophs. As saprobes, they secrete enzymes that break down food into simpler
molecules that are absorbed by them rather than ingested by them. Parasitic fungi they feed on
plants and animals through specialized hyphae called haustoria which penetrate and grow in host
cells and directly absorb nutrients from the host. Fungi that are predators have sticky hyphae that trap
their prey. Most fungi reproduce asexually by producing fruiting bodies that contain spores.

Classification of Fungi

1. Phylum Zygomycota (zygote-forming fungi). Zygomycetes are typically bread molds and
mildews in fruits and in your towels. They are usually found in moist carbohydrate rich food,
dead plants, and animals.

2. Phylum Ascomycota (Sac Fungi). Penicillium, the source of the antibiotic penicillin, is a well-
known ascomycete discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. Ascomycetes includes the
following: yeasts, mildews, truffles, morels, among the over 30,000 species known that live
independently. Most species live on moist decaying materials, others are parasitic.
Ascomycetes commonly reproduce asexually by producing conidia at the tips of modified
hyphae called the conidiophores.

3. Phylum Basidiomycota (Club Fungi). At the onset of the rainy season, a number of
mushrooms, puffballs, toadstools emerge from the moist grounds. Decaying branches
provide habitat for various species of shelf, bracket and gill slit fungi. The club fungi that you
see above the ground or decaying wood are the fruiting bodies.

4. Phylum Deuteromycota (Imperfect Fungi). In the case of imperfect fungi, sexual structures
have not been observed yet, and so for convenience, fungi without observed sexual
reproductive structures are placed in this group.

5. Phylum Glomeromycota. The glomeromycetes, fungi assigned to the phylum

Glomeromycota, were formerly thought to be zygomycetes. But recent molecular studies,
including a phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequence data from hundreds of fungal species,
indicate that glomeromycetes form a separate clade. Although only 200 species have been
described to date, molecular studies indicate that the actual number of species may be much
higher. The glomeromycetes are an ecologically significant group in that nearly all of them
form arbuscular mycorrhizae.