• 7 th Grade Biology

• Molds that grow on stale bread and mushrooms in your yard are types of fungi.
• Most fungi share several important characteristics.
• They are eukaryotes that have cell walls, are heterotrophs that feed by absorbing their food, and use spores to reproduce.
• Fungi need moist warm places in which to grow.
• They thrive on moist foods, damp tree bark, lawns coated with dew, damp forest floors, wet tile, and even your stinky damp feet.

• What a fungus looks like depends on how its hyphae are arranged.
• Fuzzy-looking molds that grow on old foods have loosely tangled hyphae.
• In some they are packed tightly together.
• The stalks and caps of mushrooms are examples of tightly packed hyphae.
• Some are packed so tight they appear solid.
Underground the mushroom has loose, threadlike hyphae.

• Fungi range from tiny yeasts to large multicellular fungi.
• The largest known organism on Earth is actually an underground fungus that covers an area as large as a thousand football fields.
• The cells of most fungi are arranged in structures called hyphae .
• Hyphae are the branching, threadlike tubes that make up the bodies of multicellular fungi.
• The hyphae of some fungi are continuous threads of cytoplasm that contain many nuclei.
• Substances move quickly and freely through the hyphae .

• Although fungi are heterotrophs they do not take in food like we do. They absorb food through hyphae that grow into the food source.
• First the fungi grows hypae into the source of food.
• Then digestive chemicals ooze from the hyphae into the food.
• The chemicals break down the food. Then they are absorbed.
• Some are parasites and break down food in living tissue, others feed on dead organisms.

• When you eat a slice of bread, you benefit from the work of yeast.
• Bakers add yeast to make it rise.
• Yeast cells use the sugar in the dough for food and produce carbon dioxide gas as they feed.
• The gas forms bubbles, which causes the dough to rise.
• Yeast is used to make wine from grapes.
• Molds are used to make some foods.
• The blue streak in blue cheese. Are actually mold.
• Mushrooms are also a good source of food.
• Some are very poisonous!

• Many fungi are parasites that cause serious diseases in plants.
• The sac fungus that causes Dutch Elm disease is responsible for killing millions of elm trees in North America and Europe.
• Corn smut and wheat rust are among plant diseases.

• Some cause diseases in humans.
• Athlete's foot fungus causes an itchy irritation in the damp places between toes.
• Nail fungus causes white and yellow spots on the toe or finger nail. Gets under the nail and can cause damage.
And its gross.
• Jock itch.
• Ringworm, another fungal disease, causes itchy, circular rash on the skin.
• Some pneumonia is caused by fungus.
• Because these diseases produce spores they can spread to person to person.