Hi, In this video, we're going to talk about fungi, which include molds, mushrooms, yeasts, mildew, all that lovely stuff. Now, fungi are heterotrophic eukaryotes and they generally have a haploid nucleus. They tend to be the main decomposers in many ecosystems. And this is a very important feature of fungi that we're going to return to again and again. And here you can see a couple examples. We have morel mushrooms which are absolutely delicious type of mushroom. Here, these, Ammonium muscaria, these will kill you. Don't eat those. And of course, this is the most important mushroom, the power mushroom. Now, some fungi are mutualists and that basically means they exist in a relationship with another organism that benefits both of them. And this is another one of those really important properties of fungi and you'll see why momentarily. Now, fungi are essential to many land plants. You often think of these as being two completely separate organisms but the point that I'm going to try drive home to you is that most land plants would not be able to survive without fungi. And the reason is because of this mutualist relationship they share, this symbiosis they share. Now, a couple of examples of some fungi relationships, not the kinds that end in bad breakups, the good kinds are endophytes which are basically symbiotic fungi that live inside plants. They benefit the plants that they live in and the plants in which they live benefit them, and they lived happily ever after. That's not to say that things can, that things always work out well as we'll see soon. Now lichen are an especially cool example of a mutualist fungal relationship. It's a symbiotic association of fungus and algae or sometimes cyanobacteria. The main point being a unicellular organism that performs photo synthesis. Now in this example here, we see, in blue the fungal body. We'll learn more about what fungal bodies are made of momentarily, but for now just think of that as the body of the fungus, and it's wrapped around these algae. And essentially, these two organisms are going to help each other. I mean algae perform photosynthesis, right? Again, this could be cyanobacteria but for the sake of my example, I'm just going to talk about algae. So, algae perform photosynthesis meaning they're going to generate, organic compounds that the fungus can feed off of. In return, the fungus helps, secure water for the algae and also helps prevent it from drying out. There you can see a picture of some lichen right there. It's a little lichen clump. Lichen actually come in all different shapes and sizes. They have many different morphologies. Really cool organism. Now, the last thing I want to say is that some fungi are actually, or some fungi have symbiosis that are obligate. That is to say they exhibit obligate symbiosis, meaning they have to live in a symbiosis in order to survive. Now other fungi and many fungi in fact, are facultative. And if you recall these terms from when we talked about, cellular respiration, specifically aerobic respiration, You might recall that obligate means you have to and facultative means you can but it's not, necessary. So some fungi can have symbiosis but they don't necessarily need them in order to survive. They might just survive better with them. Now, said not all these relationships end well. Well, it turns out there are bunch of fungi that are parasites and they'll infect plants and animals. And when they infect animals, we call this mycosis. Now, fungi tend to be the main decomposers as I said and what's really important is they're able to digest plant material, specifically cellulose and lignin. You might remember, previously when we talked about lignin, we said it was a tough material and thinking way far back to when we first talked about cellulose, we actually talked about the fact that, cellulose cannot be digested. If you're curious as to this lesson, I'm referring to the lesson on carbohydrates in the biological molecules chapter. Now, cellulose can't be digested by animals. But fungi can digest cellulose. So they're actually a bunch of fungi that live in the guts of various animal species that help those animals digest plant material by breaking up the cellulose for them as well as the lignin for that matter. And what's so important about this is because plants take so much carbon out of the atmosphere, right? They take all that CO2 that we animals put into the atmosphere. They take it out and they build it into their bodies, right? And if nothing is done about this, then that carbon just sits there and and eventually those plants, the carbon in those plants will turn to what we know as coal today. But fungi return this carbon to the carbon cycle. So they break down that non-digestible plant matter or what's non-digestible to many other organisms. They break it down and they return that carbon to the carbon cycle. And actually, we have a special term for fungi that feed on dead plant matter specifically. Right? If you're feeding on live plant matter, well, probably a parasite. Right? So fungi that feed on dead plant matter are called saprophytes. Now, here I just want to point out, this parasitic fungal infection. All these little tubular pink spaghetti strands, whatever you want to think of them as, branches they kind of look like. Those are part of the fungal body. And this, is animal tissue around it. So that is a fungal infection in an animal. And over here, we can actually see the, fungal bodies that are in the process of, decomposing or fungal bodies that will be part of organisms that are going to decompose plant matter and return carbon to the carbon cycle. Now before we turn the page, the last fungus I want to give a shout out to is yeast, my favorite fungus, the often overlooked fungus. However, it's a wonderful organism. It's a unicellular fungus and as you'll see most fungi, outside of yeast are multicellular, and it is the fungus that's responsible for leavened bread and beer. So we have been humans that is have been using yeast for an enormously long time. I mean it's hard to really say. I'd you know, I'm not an expert on anthropology but it's humans have incorporated yeast into our cooking processes and our brewing processes for a very, very long time and they're awesome organisms and they actually have many similarities to human cells which is why they're used, for a number of studies including genetic studies to learn more about humans. So go yeast. Yeast is awesome. And with that, let's turn the page.
Table of contents
- 1. Introduction to Biology2h 40m
- 2. Chemistry3h 40m
- 3. Water1h 26m
- 4. Biomolecules2h 23m
- 5. Cell Components2h 26m
- 6. The Membrane2h 31m
- 7. Energy and Metabolism2h 0m
- 8. Respiration2h 40m
- 9. Photosynthesis2h 49m
- 10. Cell Signaling59m
- 11. Cell Division2h 47m
- 12. Meiosis2h 0m
- 13. Mendelian Genetics4h 41m
- Introduction to Mendel's Experiments7m
- Genotype vs. Phenotype17m
- Punnett Squares13m
- Mendel's Experiments26m
- Mendel's Laws18m
- Monohybrid Crosses16m
- Test Crosses14m
- Dihybrid Crosses20m
- Punnett Square Probability26m
- Incomplete Dominance vs. Codominance20m
- Epistasis7m
- Non-Mendelian Genetics12m
- Pedigrees6m
- Autosomal Inheritance21m
- Sex-Linked Inheritance43m
- X-Inactivation9m
- 14. DNA Synthesis2h 27m
- 15. Gene Expression3h 20m
- 16. Regulation of Expression3h 31m
- Introduction to Regulation of Gene Expression13m
- Prokaryotic Gene Regulation via Operons27m
- The Lac Operon21m
- Glucose's Impact on Lac Operon25m
- The Trp Operon20m
- Review of the Lac Operon & Trp Operon11m
- Introduction to Eukaryotic Gene Regulation9m
- Eukaryotic Chromatin Modifications16m
- Eukaryotic Transcriptional Control22m
- Eukaryotic Post-Transcriptional Regulation28m
- Eukaryotic Post-Translational Regulation13m
- 17. Viruses37m
- 18. Biotechnology2h 58m
- 19. Genomics17m
- 20. Development1h 5m
- 21. Evolution3h 1m
- 22. Evolution of Populations3h 52m
- 23. Speciation1h 37m
- 24. History of Life on Earth2h 6m
- 25. Phylogeny2h 31m
- 26. Prokaryotes4h 59m
- 27. Protists1h 12m
- 28. Plants1h 22m
- 29. Fungi36m
- 30. Overview of Animals34m
- 31. Invertebrates1h 2m
- 32. Vertebrates50m
- 33. Plant Anatomy1h 3m
- 34. Vascular Plant Transport2m
- 35. Soil37m
- 36. Plant Reproduction47m
- 37. Plant Sensation and Response1h 9m
- 38. Animal Form and Function1h 19m
- 39. Digestive System10m
- 40. Circulatory System1h 57m
- 41. Immune System1h 12m
- 42. Osmoregulation and Excretion50m
- 43. Endocrine System4m
- 44. Animal Reproduction2m
- 45. Nervous System55m
- 46. Sensory Systems46m
- 47. Muscle Systems23m
- 48. Ecology3h 11m
- Introduction to Ecology20m
- Biogeography14m
- Earth's Climate Patterns50m
- Introduction to Terrestrial Biomes10m
- Terrestrial Biomes: Near Equator13m
- Terrestrial Biomes: Temperate Regions10m
- Terrestrial Biomes: Northern Regions15m
- Introduction to Aquatic Biomes27m
- Freshwater Aquatic Biomes14m
- Marine Aquatic Biomes13m
- 49. Animal Behavior28m
- 50. Population Ecology3h 41m
- Introduction to Population Ecology28m
- Population Sampling Methods23m
- Life History12m
- Population Demography17m
- Factors Limiting Population Growth14m
- Introduction to Population Growth Models22m
- Linear Population Growth6m
- Exponential Population Growth29m
- Logistic Population Growth32m
- r/K Selection10m
- The Human Population22m
- 51. Community Ecology2h 46m
- Introduction to Community Ecology2m
- Introduction to Community Interactions9m
- Community Interactions: Competition (-/-)38m
- Community Interactions: Exploitation (+/-)23m
- Community Interactions: Mutualism (+/+) & Commensalism (+/0)9m
- Community Structure35m
- Community Dynamics26m
- Geographic Impact on Communities21m
- 52. Ecosystems2h 36m
- 53. Conservation Biology24m
29. Fungi
Fungi
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