Fungi Kingdom

Characteristics of Fungi

The Fungi Kingdom includes mushrooms, yeasts, and molds.

• Fungi are heterotrophic organisms. This is one of the characteristics that's different between plants and fungi. Plants are autotrophic, which means they make their own food. Plants have chlorophyll, a green pigment which they use in photosynthesis. Fungi do not have chlorophyll, which is why most fungi are not green.
  
  
• The cell walls of fungi contain a substance called chitin. Chitin is the same tough substance that is found in the hard outer covering of insects. Plant cell walls, on the other hand, contain cellulose.
  
  
• Fungi are made of long filaments which are woven together. These filaments are called hyphae. A mass of hyphae gets woven together into a mycellium
  
  
• Although both plants and fungi engage in mitosis, there are some differences in the process. When mushrooms are undergoing mitosis, the nuclear envelope of the cells does not disintegrate as it does in plants. This causes spindle fibers to form inside the nucleus. The spindle fibers then pull the chromosomes to the opposite sides of the nucleus, instead of to the opposite sides of the cell as occurs in plants and most other eukaryotes.
  
  
• Fungi use spores to reproduce.
  
  
• Fungi have an alternation of generations life cycle, just like plants.
  
  
• Fungi are non-vascular, which means they don't have a transport system that carries water and nutrients throughout the organism.
  
  
• Fungi digest their food before eating it! They do this by secreting enzymes onto their food then absorbing the nutrients.

Symbiotic relationships that include fungi

Mutualism - where both partners in the relationship benefit from the other

1. A mycorrhiza is a mutualistic relationship between fungi and the roots of plants. In some mycorrhiza, the hyphae of the fungi actually penetrate the roots of the plants. In other mycorrhizae, the hyphae wrap around the plant roots. In both cases, the fungi provide the plants with phosphorus and other minerals through the plants' roots. The plant, in turn, offers the fungi carbohydrates.
   
   
2. Lichens are a combination of a fungus and a photosynthetic algae or cyanobacterium, working together. The photosynthetic algae or cyanobacterium is located in-between the layers of the hyphae! Lichens can grow in habitats that are difficult for many other species to inhabit. They can grow on bare rocks (and help to break the rocks down), on bare soil, on the trunks of trees, in deserts, and in the Arctic!