Fungus Essay

Bread. A common household food item used in pizza, sandwiches, burgers, and more. But when bread sits out too long you start to notice some fuzzy stuff growing on it. This fuzzy stuff is Rhizopus Stolonifer or, more commonly known as, black bread mold. This mold is a member of the of the phylum Zygomycota, which have life cycles that include a zygospore. A zygospore is a resting spore that has zygotes made when the mold is in its sexual phase of its lifecycle. Rhizopus stolonifer reproduced asexually and sexually. This happens when two hyphae come together, from different mating types, and form gametangia. The gametangia the fuses

The conditions needed for the growth of micro-organisms are: Micro - organisms need food to survive. They like high protein food to survive, eg. Poultry & fish. Most micro - organisms need warmth & grow best at 20-40c. They need moisture to multiply. They need air to multiply, though some can without. A single Micro-organism becomes two every twenty minutes.

#3. The fungus infused with mycelium when it decomposes wood and plant material. It becomes generates soil and dirt.

4. Know the classification of fungal diseases (mycoses). 30% of known fungal species produce mycoses, which are fungal diseases of plants, animals, and humans. Classifications of fungi are; Zygomycota, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota.

Some fungi have a dikaryotic (two nuclei in one cell) stage, more commonly known as a heterokaryotic stage, because the fungus can wait for an opportune time to fuse the nuclei together and grow. The fungus would not want to grow rapidly in the diploid stage unless it had adequate food sources. This waiting will allow for maximum efficiency during its growth.

9. In the research done on the microbial community in the Rhizosphere using two methods, which are the Cultivation-dependent method and Cultivation-independent method. The research and studies done had good results, moreover, the physiological profiling was done in 5 days by the use of several carbon sources. The maximal growth was observed for the 30 degrees celsius- incubated plate by day 3, whereas comparable values were recorded for the room to the temperature-incubated plate by day 5.

Fungi were collected from the air and selected for using different media types in order to demonstrate the principle of selection. This was done using two different types of media with differing pH levels. The Mycophil plate had a pH of 5 and selected for fungal growth while the Tryptic Soy Agar plate, with a pH of 7, served as a general growth medium. The plates were exposed for 5 minutes outside of the Food Science Building at Rutgers University. High fungal percentages were found on the Mycophil plates, and low fungal percentages with more bacteria present were found on the Tryptic Soy Agar plates after incubation at room temperature. This proved that fungal growth favors a more acidic pH, while bacterial growth favors a neutral pH.

2. Kingdom Protists- these organisms solely do not depend on themselves to create food but on other living things.

Molds are eukaryotic (taxonomic group that includes organisms composed of one or more cells with visible nuclei and organelles) micro-organisms that are decomposers of dead organic material such as leaves, wood and plants. Mold grows by the extension of hyphae, which are considered to be tiny root hairs that extend across surfaces. In this way, small colonies of mold can expand to cover many square feet of material and it can also create spores that allow mold to inhabit the air and spread across various locations. (Moreau, 1974, p.125). The spores and hair-like bodies of individual mold colonies are too small for humans to detect without a microscope. These spores can survive in various conditions, such as hot, cold, dry and moist, and allows mold to grow. When spores are released they can be carried by air or water to new locations. According to Christensen (1975), some spores are so small that they are more affected by air currents than by gravity as it allows them to reach further locations. When spores land on a damp surface that has food and oxygen available, and the proper temperature, they will start to grow. Mold spores are ubiquitous in nature and are present everywhere, in outside air as well as indoor air. Wherever there is decomposing organic material mold and its spores are also present, which makes it

they require a carbon source to thrive. The nutrient that is taken in by the fungi is

Some of the conditions which the spores can grow and become very toxic are: low-oxygen or anaerobic environment, low acid, low sugar, low salt, certain temperature range and certain amount of water.

The different phases of the C. immitis life cycle is a saprobic phase which takes place while the fungus is in the soil and a parasitic phase which begins once the fungus is present in a host. As the fungus matures in the soil, arthroconidia, the pathogenic spores, form along the mycelia as alternating cells(Lewis, “Dust”). After the arthroconidia are fully matured they break off from the mycelia, becoming environmentally resistant spores that can live in the soil for months or years. The spores lie dormant, waiting for soil disruption from farming or construction to send them floating through the air. Once the spores are inhaled, the parasitic phase begins as the arthroconidia convert into large spherules that produce many small, single-celled endospores. The rupturing of the spherules causes the endospores to be spread throughout the lungs, infecting the bronchi and alveoli and starting the parasitic phase all over again with each endospore maturing into a spherule. The parasitic phase of C. immitis is fairly short, with a spore transforming to a rupture-ready spherule within five days after

‘’Mold is a fungus that grows in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. In contrast, fungi that can adopt a single celled growth habit are called yeasts.’’

Usually pathogenicity tests are done by measuring the temperatures fungi can withstand. Dematiaceous species can withstand temperatures at 35°C which means they can be invasive to human tissue and likely spread since that is near body temperature [7]. For the Phialemonium obovatum species, it has been shown that it can grow at temperatures as low as 15°C and as high as 40°C, with their optimum growth being in between 24°C-33°C[2]. Since this species have shown that they can continue to grow at temperatures of up to 40°C which means they have no problem being an invasive pathogenic fungi but this ability also allows them to infect the central nervous system

39). This fungus adapted well with all zinc concentrations, despite that the growth less than control but this rate was almost stable in different zinc concentrations (Table 35, Fig. 39). The fungus sporulation increased gradually with increasing zinc concentrations in the culture media and higher than that of control culture (Figs. 40,