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Molds can also pose a hazard to human and animal health when they are consumed following the growth of certain mold species in stored food. Some species produce toxic secondary metabolites, collectively termed mycotoxins , including aflatoxins , ochratoxins , fumonisins , trichothecenes , citrinin , and patulin .
Other recent studies (2009) estimate the arrival of fungal organisms at about 760–1060 Ma on the basis of comparisons of the rate of evolution in closely related groups. [13] For much of the Paleozoic Era (542–251 Ma), the fungi appear to have been aquatic and consisted of organisms similar to the extant Chytrids in having flagellum-bearing ...
An example is Talaromyces marneffei, [3] a human pathogen that grows as a mold at room temperature, and as a yeast at human body temperature. The term dimorphic is commonly used for fungi that can grow both as yeast and filamentous cells, however many of these dimorphic fungi actually can grow in more than these two forms.
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').
Life cycle. Dictyostelium discoideum is a species of soil-dwelling amoeba belonging to the phylum Amoebozoa, infraphylum Mycetozoa.Commonly referred to as slime mold, D. discoideum is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular amoebae into a multicellular slug and then into a fruiting body within its lifetime.
An immature zygosporangium of the Rhizopus fungus forming from two fused gametangia, showing a "yoke" shape.. The name Zygomycota refers to the zygosporangia characteristically formed by the members of this clade, in which resistant spherical spores are formed during sexual reproduction.
Slime molds contribute to the decomposition of dead vegetation; some are parasitic. Most slime molds are terrestrial and free-living, typically in damp shady habitats such as in or on the surface of rotting wood. Some myxogastrians and protostelians are aquatic or semi-aquatic. The phytomyxea are parasitic, living inside their plant hosts.
As the slime mold does not have any nervous system that could explain these intelligent behaviours, there has been considerable interdisciplinary interest in understanding the rules that govern its behaviour. Scientists are trying to model the slime mold using a number of simple, distributed rules.