Fungi live every where in our world. in air, in land, in water, in soil, and inside the host plants and animals.Some fungi are of microscopic size and some are big enough. Fungi are so vital that they determine the types of host plants and animals to live in the biological community.
Scientist believe that there are million of fungi are there in our world and they have just identified 5% all of them. let us know about the characteristics of fungi and their difference from plant and animals. Fungi are heterotrophs, obtaining their nutrients by absorption. Saprophytic fungi secrete enzymes to break down dead organic matter in recycling. other fungi are obtain their nutrients from their living host.
Fungi cell walls are made mostly of the carbohydrate chitin, unlike cell walls of plants which are mostly made of cellulose. Chitin is also found in Exoskeleton of insects. The storage carbohydrate of fungi is glycogen, the same molecule found in animal muscle and liver cell. starch storage molecule found in the plant kingdom.
Fungi can reproduce sexually and asexually, although some fungi reproduce only asexually. the sexual life cycle of fungi is different from all other eukaryotic organisms in that the zygote is the only diploid cell. When two mating types fuse, the two nuclei do not fuse but coexist until the right condition are present. fusion results in the diploid zygote, which immediately undergoes meiosis to return to the haploid state. The coexistence of two different mating types of nuclei is the dikaryotic stage, which is unique to fungi.
Surprisingly, the fungi kingdom is more related to the animal kingdom. Fungi and animal kingdoms probably diverged from a common ancestor some 0.6 billion years ago. Scientist have classified fungi into four groups according to their molecular structure and sexual reproduction : chytrids, Zygomycetes, ascomycetes, basidiomycetes.
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