Kingdom Fungi MCQ - Practice Questions & Answers

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Characteristics of Fungi is considered one the most difficult concept.
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Characteristics of Fungi

Fungi are eukaryotic and multicellular organisms. Only yeast is unicellular
Fungi can grow in all kinds of habitats, water, soil, air, in the body of plants and animals etc. Some may grow on bread as mould (Rhizopus), some can be a cause of rot in oranges (Alternaria), wheat rust (Puccinia), white rust or spots of mustard (Albugo). Some can be economically important as yeast is used to produce bread, wine etc.
Fungi lack plastids and photosynthetic pigments.
These are non -photosynthetic and heterotrophic in nutrition. Fungi can be saprotrophic, parasitic or symbionts.
The cell wall is composed of chitin and polysaccharides instead of cellulose in plants.
Food is stored in the form of glycogen and oil.
The fungal body is made up of slender, tubular thread-like structures called hyphae, which aggregate to form mycelia.
Reproduction in fungi is of three types i.e. vegetative, asexual and sexual.
Vegetative reproduction takes place by fragmentation, budding, fission etc.
Asexual reproduction may occur through the formation of spores.
Sexual reproduction may occur by gametangial contact, gametangial copulation, spermatogamy and somatogamy.
Spores found in fungi
Zoospores are motile (flagellated) spores found in Phycomycetes.
Sporangiospores are non-flagellated spores that develop inside sporangia e.g. Mucor, Rhizopus etc.
Conidia are non-motile exogenous spores that develop on specialised hyphae called conidiophores e.g. Penicillium, Aspergillus Etc.
Ascospores are non-motile sexual spores that are formed endogenously after sexual reproduction inside special sacs called ascus. An ascus generally contains 8 ascospores e.g. ascomycetes.
Basidiospores are non-motile sexual spores that are formed exogenously on short outgrowths called sterigmata of the club-shaped structure called basidium. E.g. basidiomycetes.
Binucleate spores are dikaryotic i.e. they have two nuclei which have not fused yet. Aeciospores, teleutospores, uredospores.
In higher fungi, there is the formation of fruiting bodies i.e. ascocarp in ascomycetes and basidiocarp in basidiomycetes.
Kingdom fungi is classified into four classes on the basis of nature of mycelium, type of fruiting bodies and type of spores formed.
These four classes are Phycomycetes, Ascomycetes, Basidiomycetes and Deuteromycetes.