专业英语（生物技术）4-1.pptVIP

Lesson four  Fungi: The Great Decomposers Characteristics of Fungi The approximately 175000 species of fungi include some of the simplest muticellular organisms. Fungi have a variety of lifestyles. They may be saprobes that decompose dead organic matter; they may be parasites which obtain nutrients from living hosts; or they may live in symbiotic relationships with algae or with the roots of higher plants. In spite of these variations, however, all fungi carry out extracellular digestion: they secrete enzymes that digest organic matter, and then they absorb the resulting nutrients. Most fungi have the same basic body structure consisting of a main body or thallus composed of filaments called hyphae. In most species the walls of hyphal cells contain chitin. Hyphae in certain species may become specialized to form rhizoids, which serve as rootlike anchors, or they may become the feeding structures known as haustoria. Finally, hyphae may or may not be septate----having cross walls that segregate independent cells, each with at least one nucleus. Lower fungi are coenocytic; that is, they are one mass of cytoplasm that contains multiple nuclei . Hyphae grow and branch to form a filamentous network called a mycellium. Food is digested and absorbed at the tip of each hyphae; more hyphae are generated as this process continues. As a result, fungi may grow very rapidly. Growth depends on mitosis and the rapid manufacture of cytoplasm; fungal mitosis is unique in that it occurs within the nucleus. Hyphae from genetically distinct individuals may fuse to form a heterokaryon----a single cytoplasm with dissimilar nuclei. As nonmotile heterotrophs, fungi must eventually be able to find new sources of nutrients. This function is fulfilled by spores, the fungal reproductive bodies. Spores may be borne on aerial hyphae, which discharge spores into the air, and depending on the species they may haploid or diploid. Th