Week 1: (Fungi and ‘Algae’)
1. What are 5 important reasons to study plants?
2. How did Linnaeus divide animals from plants (which he thought included Fungi)?
3. What are the 3 great groups of life on earth? When did life 1st arise?
4. Within the Eukarya, to whom are Fungi most closely related – animals, plants, brown
algae, or slime molds?
5. When do we 1st see Fungi in the fossil record? How many spp. are presently described?
Estimated to exist?
6. What are 7 characteristics of Fungi?
7. Give 3 examples of how Fungi are useful in the food industry. Why might Fungi
produce the noxious compounds they do?
8. Who is Amanita and why should you not eat it (be specific)?
9. Give 2 examples of how Fungi are important in medicine.
10. Give 3 examples of fungal diseases.
11. What are opportunistic Fungi?
12. What is aflatoxin and why should people who have had Hepatitis B or C be concerned?
13. How has the close relationship between humans and Fungi posed problems for the
medical community? What observations have helped resolve some of these problems?
14. Name the fungal diseases that damage Corn and Elm Trees.
15. In which (general) environment do most Fungi live?
16. With respect to Fungi: (a) what is a filament? (b) What is another word for a filament?
(c) What is a mycelium? (d) Give an example of a mycelium you encounter in your daily
routine.
17. Describe asexual reproduction in Fungi.
18. Describe the sexual life cycle of Fungi.
19. Diagram Pilobus, labeling the spore mass, inflated stalk, stalk, and hyphae. How is spore
dispersal critical for the Pilobus life cycle?
20. What is a lichen? How do they illustrate the concept of a mutualistic symbiotic
relationship? By whom where they 1st recognized?
21. Where do lichens commonly live? How do they contribute to soil formation? How are
they indicators of pollution?
22. What 5 groups are commonly lumped into the ‘algae’? Distinguish between uni- and
multicellular members.
23. Describe the importance of unicellular ‘algae’ for our atmosphere.
24. What are red tides? Which unicellular ‘alga’ causes them? How can this come to be
important in your life?
25. How is the cell wall of diatoms different than dinoflagellates? How does this difference
relate to diatomaceous earth?
26. What are 3 common uses of diatomaceous earth?
27. What is the hypothesized evolutionary relationship between a Chlamydomonas-type
microorganism and a Volvox-type microorganism?
28. What are common commercial uses for brown algae? Hint: look at the ingredients in
your ice cream.
29. Describe asexual reproduction in ‘algae’.
30. Diagram and describe the alternation of generations life cycle. How is it similar yet
different to the mammal (i.e., human) life cycle?