Mycology

Mycology

1. The study of Fungi

2. Characteristics of Fungi and its associated organisms

   • Nuclear status
     • Eukaryotic, uninucleate, multinucleate, homo or heterokaryotic, haploid or diploid
     • nuclear status differs according to species and stage of development
   • Thallus
     • plasmodial or pseudoplasmodial (slime moulds), unicellu;ar (yeasts) or filamentous (other fungi), typically non-motile but motile states may occur (zoospores), eucarpic or holocarpic
     • slime molds are not fungi whereas yeasts are examples of fungi
     • eucarpic - when a part of the thallus is converted into one or more reproductive structures
     • holocarpic - when the entirety of the thallus is converted into reproductive structures
     • higher fungi typically have non-motile spores while lower fungi have motile spores
   • Nutrition
     • heterptrophic (they do not photosynthesize due to being achlorophyllous) and they aregenerally absorptive (ingestion is rare)
     • plasmodia are the rare few which undergo ingestion
   • cell wall
     • well defined, typicslly chitinized (it is cellulosic in Oomycetes
   • sexuality
     • asexualor sexual, homothallic or heterothallic
   • sporocarps
     • microscopic or macroscopic
     • these are structures which produce spores. they are also known as "fruting bodies" and the names of sporocarps are specific for each fungi
   • habitat
     • ubiquitous as saprobes, parasites, hyperparasites or symbionts
   • distribution
     • cosmopolitan