Fungi: The Great Decomposers Essay, Research Paper

Fungi: The Great Decomposers

Although fungi are over looked in the commerical asspect of the world, they play

a great rool in the web of life. In the fungi kingdom there are over 175,00

diffrent species. The main object of fungi is to decompose nutrients of plants

and animals.

History

the history of fungi is not very clear because scientists have never

realy wnt in great deepth , because fungi are not needed commericaly. the

ancestors of fungi lived in shallow bodies of water about 600-800 million years

ago. Some of the things the fungi had to encounter from living out of water was,

there was more sunlight that was normally blocked be the water, and the had to

do something about the rapid shifts in tempature and seasonal shifts.

Fungi are different from other plants in many ways. The general

characteristics of fungi are extracellalar digestion, peculiar structures,

growth patterns, their use of spores for reproduction, and their life cycles.

Characteristics of Fungi

Fungi have many feactures that set them apart from the plant and animal

dingdom. Fungi are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by secreting enzymes.