Some fungi are saprobes saprophytes , as important in decomposition as the bacteria; others are symbiotrophs , living in symbiotic association with plants, animals, protists, and cyanobacteria. Well-known symbioses are: lichens that are associations of fungi and green algae or cyanobacteria; mycorrhizae , associations of fungi and plant roots; and endophytes , fungi and plant leaves and stems. Some fungi are parasites fungal pathogens and responsible for diseases of both plants and animals.
Complex life cycles involving one or more hosts have developed between fungal pathogens and their hosts. The Earth's largest living organism may be a fungus: either the mycelium reported from Washington state that covers 1, acres but probably is disjointed and broken or the one in Michigan that covers 37 acres and is estimated to weigh tons—the weight of a blue whale. Previous Yeasts. Next Characteristics of Fungi.
Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title. Are you sure you want to remove bookConfirmation and any corresponding bookmarks? For ever so long, fungi sat at the very bottom — the most primitive place — on the plant classification tree.
This tree marked the way plant groups had developed. Fungi sat and watched while students of biology "oohed" and "aahed" over the dramatic beauty of the sunflower and the beautiful complexity of the orchid. Both of those life forms perched on the highest branches of the plant classification tree. Over time researchers began to use more advanced microscopes. They studied plants and animals in tiny detail. They looked at leaves and stems.
They also looked at cells and atoms. They realized that their old system of classification was tidy. Unfortunately, it was not accurate. Fungi were quite distinctive from other life forms.
They resembled neither plants nor animals. Changes occurred. Today when we open up a biology book, we find a very different classification tree. In most books we find a tree with six kingdoms, not two. At the bottom of the tree we find three kingdoms with very strange names in Latin — Eubacteria, Archaebacteria, and Protista. On the top there are three equal branches.
Classifying fungi as plants has led to some curious events. This pairing of fungi with plants is a present problem: misclassification matters because how we classify organisms affects how we understand, support financially and culturally and engage with them. Why were fungi ever considered plants? Today, we know that fungi are not plants, but the botanical history of fungi provides an interesting perspective on our scientific biases, on how we classify organisms and how these impact our collective knowledge.
Taxonomic classifications are in constant flux, as we refine our understanding of the incredible diversity that surrounds us. Even in the age of genomics, we have only just scratched the surface of this diversity. Today, we have the luxury of molecular tools for classification, but taxonomic classifications can be traced back before the discovery of DNA, the concept of evolution and the invention of the microscope. Early classifications were limited by the tools and views available to them.
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