Chapter 25.1, Problem 3CC

Summary Introduction

Fungi are eukaryotic, spore-bearing organisms and they have absorptive nutrition by secreting digestive enzymes. They lack chlorophyll and have both sexual and asexual reproductive systems. The study of fungi is known as mycology and the study of fungal toxins is known as mycotoxicology. In animals, diseases caused by fungi are called mycoses. There are numerous group of organisms are classified under fungi, nearly 90,000 fungal species are described. Fungi are terrestrial organisms and distributed globally from the regions of polar to nonpolar. They are often inconspicuous and they play crucial roles in the ecosystem and decomposition.