Fungi (thing)

Fungi are one of the strangest of life's kingdoms. They are ubiquitous and very important to science and commerce. Fungi are responsible for everything from the creation of beer and cheese and life-saving pharmaceuticals such as penicillin. They are also the cause of deadly diseases like histoplasmosis and they can cause severe damage to crops and material goods.

Fungi may be more closely related to animals than plants. They are a taxonomical nightmare, however, because of their inherent variability. Along with this variability, which often entails multiple alleles for a single locus, other characteristics which make fungi special are:

• They are eukaryotic, distinguishable from the prokaryotic actinomycetes by larger filaments (hyphae).
  
  
• Most have cell walls composed of chitin, less tightly bound than in the exoskeletons of insects.
  
  
• They utilize ergosterol.
  
  
• They are heterotrophic, taking in nutrients by absorbtion.
  
  
• They are often coenocytic, or multi-nucleate within an open system. Anastomosis allows hyphae to join and freely distribute DNA.
  
  
• They generally produce spores. Except for the slime molds, which are "mycological", if not true fungi, most fungi produce spores either sexually, asexually, or both ways.

From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. Used with permission. For further information see the BioTech homenode.