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Cultivating fungi can yield foods (which include mostly mushrooms), medicine, construction materials and other products. A mushroom farm is involved in the business of growing fungi. The word is also commonly used to refer to the practice of cultivation of fungi by animals such as leafcutter ants, termites, ambrosia beetles, and marsh periwinkles.
The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus (mushroom), used in the writings of Horace and Pliny. [10] This in turn is derived from the Greek word sphongos (σφόγγος 'sponge'), which refers to the macroscopic structures and morphology of mushrooms and molds; [11] the root is also used in other languages, such as the German Schwamm ('sponge') and Schimmel ('mold').
The Fungi are classified as a kingdom that is separate from plants and animals. The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology or fungal biology, which is historically regarded as a branch of botany , even though genetic studies have shown that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.
Molds can also grow on stored food for animals and humans, making the food unpalatable or toxic and are thus a major source of food losses and illness. [11] Many strategies for food preservation (salting, pickling, jams, bottling, freezing, drying) are to prevent or slow mold growth as well as the growth of other microbes.
In certain areas of the temperate northern hemisphere where fungi have been well studied, the ratio of vascular plant to fungal species is about 6 to 1. [2] This suggests that there may be as many as 120,000 species of fungi within the United States, surpassing the 29,000 U.S. species of microfungi estimated based on collection and literature ...
Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and infection. Yeasts are among the most heavily utilized members of the Kingdom Fungi, particularly in food manufacturing. [2] Mycology branches into the field of phytopathology, the study of plant diseases. The two disciplines are closely related ...
A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association between a green plant and a fungus. The plant makes organic molecules by photosynthesis and supplies them to the fungus in the form of sugars or lipids, while the fungus supplies the plant with water and mineral nutrients, such as phosphorus, taken from the soil.
Both plants and fungi associate with multiple symbiotic partners at once, and both plants and fungi are capable of preferentially allocating resources to one partner over another. [4] Mycorrhizal associations have profoundly impacted the evolution of plant life on Earth ever since the initial adaptation of plant life to land.