Questions
1.) What are fungi? Describe characteristics that all fungi.
Fungi are living organisms that are distantly related to plants and more closely related to animals.
2.) How do fungi acquire nutrients?
Fungi are heterotrophs that cannot make their own food, and they digest their food while it is still in the environment by secreting powerful hydrolyric enzymes called exoenzymes into their surroundings that break down the complex molecules into smaller one.
3.) Because of this mode of nutrition, fungi have evolved what structure to provide for both extensive surface area and rapid growth?
Fungal hyphae form mycelium that surrounds and infiltrates the material on which the fungus feed.
4.) How do the cell walls of fungi differ from the cell walls of plants?
Unlike the cellulose walls of plants, fungal cell walls contain chitin, a strong but flexible nitrogen-containing polysaccharide.
5.) How do fungi contribute to an ecosystem? Be specific! Fungi are primarily responsible for keeping ecosystems stocked with the inorganic nutrients essential for plant growth. Fungi are a group known as "decomposers" because they break down dead plants and animals to gather the nutrients and then release them (one of the most important being nitrogen) to other plants and animals. One may think of fungi as recycling organisms, because they soak up the nutrients from other dead organisms to give it to organisms that will use these nutrients.
6.) Give 3 detailed examples of how fungi are important to humans.
We depend on their ecological services as decomposers and recyclers of organic matter. Without Mycorrhiza, our agriculture would be far less productive. Mushrooms are a popular food, but they are not the only fungi we eat. Humans have used yeasts to produce alcoholic beverages and raise bread for thousands of years.
Fungi are living organisms that are distantly related to plants and more closely related to animals.
2.) How do fungi acquire nutrients?
Fungi are heterotrophs that cannot make their own food, and they digest their food while it is still in the environment by secreting powerful hydrolyric enzymes called exoenzymes into their surroundings that break down the complex molecules into smaller one.
3.) Because of this mode of nutrition, fungi have evolved what structure to provide for both extensive surface area and rapid growth?
Fungal hyphae form mycelium that surrounds and infiltrates the material on which the fungus feed.
4.) How do the cell walls of fungi differ from the cell walls of plants?
Unlike the cellulose walls of plants, fungal cell walls contain chitin, a strong but flexible nitrogen-containing polysaccharide.
5.) How do fungi contribute to an ecosystem? Be specific! Fungi are primarily responsible for keeping ecosystems stocked with the inorganic nutrients essential for plant growth. Fungi are a group known as "decomposers" because they break down dead plants and animals to gather the nutrients and then release them (one of the most important being nitrogen) to other plants and animals. One may think of fungi as recycling organisms, because they soak up the nutrients from other dead organisms to give it to organisms that will use these nutrients.
6.) Give 3 detailed examples of how fungi are important to humans.
We depend on their ecological services as decomposers and recyclers of organic matter. Without Mycorrhiza, our agriculture would be far less productive. Mushrooms are a popular food, but they are not the only fungi we eat. Humans have used yeasts to produce alcoholic beverages and raise bread for thousands of years.