Botany Lecture: Plant-Like Protists and Kingdom Fungi

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the characteristics, life cycles, and human impacts of plant-like protists and fungi based on botany lecture notes.

Polyphyletic Group

A taxonomic grouping, such as Kingdom Protista or Phylum Deuteromycota, whose members do not share a common ancestor that belongs to that same group, lacking a unifying shared derived characteristic.

Synapomorphy

A shared derived characteristic that unites and distinguishes the members of a particular taxonomic group.

Phylum Chlorophyta

The green algae, considered by scientists to be the evolutionary origin of Kingdom Plantae; characterized by energy storage as starch, the presence of chlorophyll b, and diverse growth habits.

Chlamydomonas

A genus of unicellular green algae roughly $1/3$ the size of a red blood cell with a fossil record spanning approximately $1\,\text{billion years}$, defined by a cup-shaped chloroplast and a single pyrenoid.

Pyrenoid

A specialized sub-cellular structure in algae responsible for starch manufacture by converting glucose into storage starch.

Zoospore

A flagellated, motile haploid spore produced by algae and certain fungi capable of swimming to find a favorable substrate before settling and growing via mitosis.

Genus Eulophrix

A genus of filamentous green algae capable of asexual reproduction via zoospores or sexual reproduction via flagellated haploid ($n$) gametes that fuse into a diploid ($2n$) zygote undergoing meiosis.

Genus Spirogyra

A filamentous green algae defined by a distinctive spiral-shaped chloroplast and multiple small pyrenoids, which undergoes sexual reproduction via conjugation tubes.

Conjugation Tube

A microscopic passage formed between two parallel filaments of Spirogyra through which a motile nucleus travels to fuse with a non-motile nucleus, forming a diploid ($2n$) zygote.

Genus Aetagonium

A filamentous green algae characterized by a net-like chloroplast and specialized reproductive organs, including antheridia and oogonia.

Oogonium

The female reproductive structure in algae such as Aetagonium (and certain fungi) that develops and houses a single non-motile egg cell.

Antheridium

The male reproductive organ found in various algae, fungi, and non-seed plants that undergoes mitosis to produce sperm.

Phylum Rhodophyta

The red algae, commonly referred to as seaweeds, characterized by possessing phycobilin accessory pigments and storing carbohydrates in the form of Floridian starch.

Phycobilins

Accessory photosynthetic pigments found in red algae tuned to absorb distinct light wavelengths, masking the green appearance of chlorophyll with a red coloration.

Floridian Starch

A branched carbohydrate storage molecule with splitting chains that serves as a defining synapomorphy for red algae (Phylum Rhodophyta).

Trichogyne

An antenna-like receptive cellular projection produced by the female carpogonium in red algae that extends into the water to intercept and fuse with non-motile spermatia.

Cystocarp

A multicellular structure that develops from the diploid ($2n$) zygote within the carpogonium of red algae, containing carposporangia that produce carpospores.

Tetrasporophyte

The diploid ($2n$) spore-producing thallus in the Rhodophyta life cycle that develops from a settled carpospore and produces four haploid tetraspores via meiosis within tetrasporangia.

Thallus

The undifferentiated vegetative body of an alga or fungus; red algae exhibit an alternation among three distinct thalli: male gametophyte, female gametophyte, and tetrasporophyte.

Supergroup SAR

A major protist supergroup named for Stramenopiles, Alveolates, and Rhizarians; encompasses yellow-green algae, golden-brown algae, diatoms, and brown algae united by genetic evidence.

Fucoxanthin

A brownish photosynthetic pigment commonly utilized by most algal lineages within Supergroup SAR, conferring a brownish-yellow coloration.

Class Bacillary Phycenae

The diatoms; unicellular protists enclosed in rigid, waterproof silica cell walls capable of surviving up to $48\,\text{years}$ dried out, progressively decreasing in size during asexual divisions until sexual reproduction resets their size.

Holdfast

The root-like basal structure of brown algae (giant kelp) that anchors the organism securely to the ocean floor without absorbing water or conducting nutrients.

Stipe

The stem-like supporting structure of brown algae or mushrooms that elevates photosynthetic blades or spore-bearing caps without possessing vascular transport tissue.

Float

A gas-filled buoyancy structure in giant kelp and related brown algae that lifts photosynthetic blades toward the surface light.

Blade

The flattened, leaf-like organ of brown algae designed with high surface area to maximize light absorption for photosynthesis.

Phylum Dinophyta

Flagellated photosynthetic protists whose massive population blooms cause red tides, producing potent neurotoxins where a drop of $1/20\,\text{mL}$ is lethal to a human.

Supergroup Discoba

A eukaryotic supergroup defined by the diagnostic synapomorphy of possessing a disc-shaped mitochondrial membrane.

Positive Phototaxis

An orientation behavior characterized by directed swimming toward light, demonstrated by Euglena using its light-perceiving eyespot and pulling anterior flagellum.

Kingdom Fungi

A kingdom of non-photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms with chitinous cell walls that are phylogenetically closest to Kingdom Animalia, traditionally grouped in botany courses due to historical convention.

Chitin

A tough structural polysaccharide integrated into fungal cell walls that acts as the defining synapomorphy for Kingdom Fungi.

Saprobe

A heterotrophic decomposer organism that extracts nutrients by breaking down non-living, decomposing organic plant or animal matter.

Mycorrhizae

A mutualistic symbiotic partnership established between subterranean fungal hyphae and plant root hairs for reciprocal nutrient exchange.

Phylum Chytridiomycota

A primitive fungal lineage named after an earthen clay pot; includes pathogenic species responsible for worldwide amphibian declines by infecting and drawing nutrients from frog embryos.

Hyphae

Microscopic, thread-like filament strands that constitute the fundamental vegetative structural units of multicellular fungi.

Mycelium

A dense, interwoven mass or network composed of numerous fungal hyphae making up the body of a fungus.

Coenocytic (Sinocitic)

A condition in fungal hyphae lacking internal partitions or cross-walls (non-septate), resulting in continuous multinucleate cytoplasm within each hyphal strand.

Phylum Zygomycota

The bread mold fungi (such as genus Rhizopus), named after the yoke-like structures formed between interacting hyphal strands during sexual conjugation.

Sporangiophore

An aerial, vertical hyphal stalk that elevates a sporangium to facilitate spore dispersal during asexual reproduction in fungi.

Progametangia

Specialized hyphal outgrowths produced by adjacent $+$ and $-$ mating strains of Zygomycota that grow toward each other, touch, and wall off their tips to form gametangia.

Phylum Ascomycota

The sac fungi, named after cup- or sac-shaped reproductive containers (asci) where spores develop; includes single-celled yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), truffles, morels, mildews, and ergot.

Dikaryotic

A genetic condition designated as ($n + n$) where two compatible haploid nuclei coexist within the same cytoplasmic compartment without immediately fusing.

Ascoma

The macroscopic, cup-shaped fruiting body assembled from woven ascogenous hyphae in cup fungi that bears the spore-producing hymenium layer.

Hymenium

The membrane-like fertile surface layer lining an ascoma or basidioma where spore-producing asci or basidia develop.

Crozier Cell

A hooked, recurved hyphal cell formed at the tip of an ascus that undergoes mitosis without cytokinesis, eventually partitioning into three distinct cells prior to nuclear fusion.

Ergotism (Saint Anthony's Fire)

A severe toxic condition caused by ingesting rye products contaminated with the ascomycete ergot, producing neurotoxins that attack the central nervous system with historic mortality exceeding $50\%$.

Phylum Basidiomycota

The club fungi, named after small pedestal-like structures (basidia) that bear spores; includes mushrooms, toadstools, puffballs, bracket fungi, rusts, and smuts.

Button

An immature, developing mushroom stage composed of dikaryotic ($n + n$) mycelium before the cap fully expands and breaks away from the stipe.

Basidioma

The mature macroscopic fruiting body (mushroom) of Basidiomycota, comprising a stipe, annulus, cap, and spore-bearing gills.

Annulus

A ring of scar tissue remaining on the stipe of a basidioma marking where the margin of the cap was originally joined before expanding.

Fairy Ring

A circular or arc-shaped colony of mushrooms emerging along the subterranean border where two compatible subterranean hyphal mating types (e.g., type $1$ and type $3$) met and fused.

Huitlacoche

An edible Mexican culinary delicacy consisting of corn kernels infected and transformed by a pathogenic smut fungus belonging to Phylum Basidiomycota.

Black Stem Wheat Rust

An agriculturally devastating parasitic basidiomycete that attacks cereal grains and requires two distinct hosts—barberry and wheat—to complete its full reproductive cycle.

Aecium

A cup-like structure developed on the lower epidermis of a barberry leaf by dikaryotic ($n + n$) rust hyphae, producing aeciospores via mitosis that disperse to infect wheat leaves.

Uredinium

A structure formed by rust mycelium on wheat leaves that produces dikaryotic urediniospores via mitosis, causing recursive re-infection across the host plant and surrounding wheat fields.

Teliospore

A resilient, thick-walled spore produced in late summer by telia on wheat that overwinters before nuclear fusion and meiosis produce infective haploid basidiospores in spring.

Phylum Deuteromycota

The imperfect fungi; an artificial polyphyletic grouping of fungi defined by having no known sexual reproduction stage, including antibiotic-producing Penicillium and Aspergillus.

Valley Fever

A human respiratory disease caused by an infection of the lungs by a pathogenic fungus classified within Phylum Deuteromycota.