7 蒋悟生生物专业英语 第七课.docVIP

Lesson Seven Fungi: The Great Decomposers Characteristics of Fungi The approximately 175,000 species of fungi include some of the simplest multicellular 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. (存在的