General Biology II Lab Practical 1 Vocabulary

A comprehensive vocabulary review covering Fungi, Phylogeny, Bacteria, and Protists for General Biology II Lab Practical 1.

Hyphae

Threadlike structures that form the vegetative stage of a fungus.

Mycelium

A collection or network of threadlike hyphae forming the body of a fungus.

Septae

End walls that divide fungal hyphae into individual cells, present in some fungi and absent in non-septate hyphae.

Plasmogamy

The stage of sexual reproduction in fungi where cytoplasm from two genetically different mating types fuses while keeping their nuclei separate.

Karyogamy

The fusion of haploid nuclei in dikaryotic fungal cells to form a diploid (2n) nucleus.

Dikaryotic

A fungal cell or mycelium containing two separate haploid nuclei per cell, denoted as (n+n).

Phylum Zygomycota

A fungal phylum that includes bread molds such as Rhizopus, producing sexual zygospores and asexual sporangiospores.

Sporangiospores

Asexual spores produced within sporangia by fungi in Phylum Zygomycota.

Zygospores

Sexual spores produced within a zygosporangium by fungi in Phylum Zygomycota.

Phylum Ascomycota

A fungal phylum known as cup fungi (including morels, yeasts, and truffles) that produces sexual ascospores and asexual conidiospores.

Ascospores

Sexual spores produced inside an ascus by fungi belonging to Phylum Ascomycota.

Conidiospores

Asexual spores (conidia) produced by fungi in Phylum Ascomycota.

Penicillium

A genus of Phylum Ascomycota that reproduces exclusively asexually and is characterized by brush-like conidiophores.

Aspergillus

A genus of Phylum Ascomycota that reproduces exclusively asexually and features spherical, radiating conidiophores.

Saccharomyces

A genus of unicellular yeast in Phylum Ascomycota that reproduces asexually by budding.

Phylum Basidiomycota

A fungal phylum containing mushrooms that produces sexual basidiospores and asexual odiaspores.

Basidiospores

Sexual spores released from club-shaped structures called basidia located on the margins of gills in Basidiomycota fruiting bodies.

Lichen

A symbiotic relationship between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner, specifically a cyanobacteria or chlorophyte.

Phylogeny

The reconstruction, categorization, and study of evolutionary relationships among categories of organisms (taxa).

Taxonomy

The science of classifying organisms into categories or taxa using systems such as the traditional Linnaean nested hierarchy.

Phylogenetics

The study of evolutionary relationships among organisms using DNA or RNA sequence differences.

Rooted Phylogenetic Tree

A phylogenetic tree featuring a single lineage at the base that represents the common ancestor of all taxa in the diagram.

Clade

Any branch or lineage in a cladogram representing an ancestor and descendant taxa.

Node

A branching point on a cladogram representing the splitting of a single lineage into two clades and marking the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA).

Sister Taxa

Two clades or lineages that split from the exact same node on a phylogenetic tree.

Polytomy

A node on a phylogenetic tree that splits into more than two clades, indicating an unresolved evolutionary relationship.

Monophyletic Group

A taxonomic group consisting of a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) and all of its descendants, also termed a true clade.

Paraphyletic Group

A taxonomic group that includes a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) and some, but not all, of its descendants.

Homologous Characters

Biological features shared by species due to common evolutionary origin and shared ancestral genetics or development.

Synapomorphy

A shared derived characteristic that arose within a clade, distinguishing members of that clade from other groups.

Evolutionary Convergence

The independent evolution of similar traits (analogous traits) in unrelated or distantly related taxa due to similar selection pressures.

Evolutionary Reversal

The re-evolution of an ancestral trait that had previously been lost in a lineage, such as the loss of legs in snakes.

Outgroup

A taxon closely related to the group of interest (ingroup) but residing outside of it, serving as a reference point for tree building.

Rule of Parsimony

The principle in cladistics stating that one should choose the simplest phylogenetic hypothesis that requires the fewest evolutionary steps or character changes.

Coccus

A spherical or round-shaped bacterial cell structure.

Bacillus

A rod-shaped bacterial cell structure.

Peptidoglycan

The polymer composing bacterial cell walls, found in a thick layer in Gram-positive bacteria and a thin layer in Gram-negative bacteria.

Gram-Positive Bacteria

Bacteria featuring a thick layer of peptidoglycan in their cell wall.

Gram-Negative Bacteria

Bacteria featuring a thin layer of peptidoglycan in their cell wall.

Cyanobacteria

A group of photosynthetic prokaryotes that form an important component of marine and freshwater phytoplankton.

Anabaena

A genus of photosynthetic cyanobacteria characterized by unbranched filaments containing vegetative cells and specialized nitrogen-fixing heterocysts.

Oscillatoria

A genus of long, unbranched filamentous cyanobacteria capable of oscillating movements.

Protozoan

A general, non-taxonomic term for heterotrophic, predatory protists.

Algae

A general, non-taxonomic term for photosynthetic protists ranging from unicellular phytoplankton to multicellular seaweeds.

Radiolarians

Unicellular, heterotrophic or mixotrophic zooplankton protists possessing delicate shells (tests) made of silica.

Foraminifera

Unicellular heterotrophic protists with tests used as markers to identify former ocean strata and locate oil deposits, such as Globigerina.

Paramecium

A single-celled ciliate protist in Alveolata known for conjugation and containing both macronuclei and micronuclei.

Stentor

A large, trumpet-shaped ciliate protist in Alveolata that attaches to substrates and uses cilia for feeding and locomotion.

Vorticella

A sedentary, bell-shaped ciliate protist belonging to Alveolata with a contractile stalk attached to a substrate.

Plasmodium

A parasitic protist in Phylum Apicomplexa within Alveolata that is transmitted by mosquitoes and causes malaria.

Euglena

A flagellated mixotrophic protist in Discoba (excavates) that is photosynthetic in light and predatory when dark.

Trypanosoma

A parasitic flagellated protist in Discoba that causes African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, evading immunity via alternative splicing.

Trichomonas

A flagellated parabasalid protist in excavates that causes a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

Physarum

A well-known genus of slime mold within supergroup Amoebozoa that forms multicellular reproductive structures and spores.

Amoeba

A unicellular heterotrophic protist in Amoebozoa (such as Amoeba proteus) that moves and feeds using pseudopodia.

Volvox

A colonial green alga in Chlorophyta within Archaeplastida forming spherical colonies containing daughter colonies.

Spirogyra

A filamentous green alga in Chlorophyta with spiral-shaped chloroplasts.

Diatoms

Photosynthetic unicellular stramenopile algae featuring glass-like tests composed of silica.

Ceratium

A genus of dinoflagellates in Alveolata whose massive population blooms cause toxic red tides.

Brown Algae

Multicellular photosynthetic stramenopiles within Order Fucales, including seaweeds such as Sargassum and Fucus.