Fungi Biology: Ecological Roles, Symbioses, and Major Phyla

Saprobes

Decomposers that obtain nutrition from dead organisms, such as white rot fungi that digest lignin

Predatory fungi

Fungi that capture, kill, and eat prey like soil-dwelling nematodes

Mycorrhizae

Mutualistic associations between fungal hyphae and plant roots trading sugar for minerals and water

Lichens

Mutualistic symbioses between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner like green algae or cyanobacteria

Lichen forms

Crustose (crust-like), Foliose (leaf-like), and Fruticose (3D, shrubby or coral-like)

Difficulty of treating fungal diseases

Fungal infections are harder to treat in animals because humans are genetically closer to fungi than to bacteria

Chytridiomycota

Primitive, mostly aquatic fungi characterized by flagellated spores called zoospores

Zoopagomycota or Zygomycota

Fungi with coenocytic hyphae that reproduce sexually by producing zygospores inside a zygosporangium

Glomeromycota

Fungi that form arbuscular mycorrhizae with plant roots

Ascomycota

Sac fungi with septate hyphae that produce sexual spores inside microscopic sac-like asci

Basidiomycota

Club fungi that produce sexual spores externally on club-shaped structures called basidia