The Importance Of Fungi

Fungi are eukaryotic organisms which include both unicellular microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, and multicellular fungi such as mushrooms. These organisms are solely classified as a kingdom, Fungi, they are separate from the other kingdoms like plants, animals, protists, and bacteria (Herbrecht et. al, 2002). Bountiful worldwide; most fungi are discreet because of their small size, structures, and their enigmatic lifestyles in soil, or dead matter (Latge, 1999). Fungi are symbionts of plants, animals, other fungi and also parasites. Fungi play a crucial role in the decomposition of organic matter and have rudimentary roles in the cycling and exchange of nutrients in the environment. Being the greatest eukaryotic diversity on earth, they

The fungi comprise an independent kingdom to plants and animals. They exist everywhere air, water, land, soil, and in plants and animals. Some fungi are microscopic whereas others spread for across or more than a thousand acres. Fungi cannot produce their own food capable, so uptake their nutrients from other sources. Fungi vary greatly in sizes and forms and are of great economic importance. (Kaushik, 2012). Fungi are diverse in terms of morphology and habitat. Fungi are heterotrophic in nature; and obtain their food by absorption. The cell walls of fungi are mostly made up of chitin, unlike the plant cell wall which is made up of cellulose. The chitin is a carbohydrate stored in fungi in the form of glycogen. The fruiting body of fungus can only be seen, while the living body of the fungus is a mycelium, which consists tiny filaments called hyphae. Fungi absorb nutrients from the organic material in which they live (host). Fungi do not possess stomachs; they digest their food before by passing through the cell wall into the hyphae. The hyphae secrete enzymes and acids that break down the complex organic material into simple compounds (Hibbett et

The spores of mature sac fungi are known as ascospores, they are released as the tip of ascus breaks open. Yeast is the most common single-celled fungi. It reproduces asexually by a process called budding. The parent cell forms reproductive structures called buds; they develop and grow into new yeast cells which are identical to the parent cell. Aspergillus, Crassa, Neurospora are some of the fungi of this class.

In these fungi the spores are produced in a club-shaped spore case called basidium. The club fungi produce large number of spores. The basidia containing the spores are lined at the gills under the cap in some fungi like mushrooms. An average sized mushroom can produce about 16 billion spores. Example: Agaricus (mushroom), Ustilago (smut) and Puccinia (rust fungus).

This class of fungi are zygote forming fungi, hence called the zygomycota. The spores are produced in round-shaped case called sporangium. The fungi of this division are mostly found on bread, cheese and other decaying food. The grayish and blackish wooly matter that appears on bread and decaying food is actually the mass of mature sporangia mold. When observed under a microscope they are seen as pinheads. The sporangium containing the spores punctures to release the spores into the environment. Example: Albugo, Mucor and