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About 300 species of fungi and fungus-like organisms, belonging to 13 classes and 113 genera, are used as biocontrol agents against plant fungal diseases. [220] Fungi can also act as mycoparasites or antagonists of other fungi, such as Hypomyces chrysospermus, which grows on bolete mushrooms. Fungi can also become the target of infection by ...
A banana slug feeding on Amanita. Many terrestrial gastropod mollusks are known to feed on fungi. It is the case in several species of slugs from distinct families.Among them are the Philomycidae (e. g. Philomycus carolinianus and Phylomicus flexuolaris) and Ariolimacidae (Ariolimax californianus), which respectively feed on slime molds (myxomycetes) and mushrooms (basidiomycetes). [5]
Approximately 66 million years ago, immediately after the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction, there was a dramatic increase in evidence of fungi. Fungi appear to have had the chance to flourish due to the extinction of most plant and animal species, and the resultant fungal bloom has been described as like "a massive compost heap". [38]
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.
By decomposing these molecules, fungi play a critical role in the global carbon cycle. Fungi and other organisms traditionally recognized as fungi, such as oomycetes and myxomycetes (slime molds), often are economically and socially important, as some cause diseases of animals (including humans) and of plants. [10]
Animals and fungi are also more closely related to amoebas than to plants, and plants are more closely related to the SAR supergroup of protists than to animals or fungi. [citation needed] Animals and fungi are both heterotrophs, unlike plants, and while fungi are sessile like plants, there are also sessile animals.
The names of some protists (called ambiregnal protists), because of their mixture of traits similar to both animals and plants or fungi (e.g., slime molds and flagellated algae like euglenids), have been published under either or both of the botanical and the zoological codes of nomenclature. [15] [16]
The genome of Monosiga brevicollis, with 41.6 million base pairs, [12] is similar in size to filamentous fungi and other free-living unicellular eukaryotes, but far smaller than that of typical animals. [12] In 2010, a phylogenomic study revealed that several algal genes are present in the genome of Monosiga brevicollis.