In this activity, you will examine representative specimens of the Kingdom Fungi by simulating a mushroom hunt. Record all of your answers on the Fungi Survey Lab Handout You may use the Fungi Notes or outside sources to help answer the questions. Try:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygomycota
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascomycota
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basidiomycota
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen
Station 1
Before leaving home, you stop to make a sandwich for your trek. When you reach for a tomato, you find this black mold growing on it:
1. To what phylum does this type of fungus belong?
2. Does this organism reproduce sexually, asexually, or both?
3. How is this mold “eating” the tomato? Describe how mold feeds?
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Station 2
You start your walk through the forest, and you are lucky enough to find many of these edible fungi, called Morels.
4. What division of Fungi do these specimens belong to?
5. What type of reproductive structures would bear its spores?
6. Is this organism heterotrophic or autotrophic?
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Station 3
You meet up with your friend, and she shows you some fungi she has collected that all seem to have the same shape.
Examine the specimens she has collected below:
7. Based on their shape, how would you classify these Fungi? (Which Division do they fit?)
8. What is the sexually reproducing structure for this Division called?
9. Are these organisms eukaryotic or prokaryotic?
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Station 4
After some more walking, you have found quite a few stalked mushrooms.
When you turn them over, you can see that they have gills.
10. Identify the Division of Fungi for these organisms.
11. What sexual structures are found within the gills?
12. You cut a stalk from one of your mushrooms in half and notice it has a spongy texture, made up of little filaments.
What is this mass of filaments called?
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Station 5
After mushroom hunting for a few hours, you are working up a sweat. Your feet start to itch.
You sit down for a snack and take off your shoes, noticing this fungus that has taken you on as a host:
13. What is the medical term for this fungal infection?
14. Identify this Fungus’ Division.
15. What are some reasons that people get this type of fungal infection?
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Station 6
Time to head back home. You notice lots of shelf-like fungi growing on the sides of trees and take some pictures.
These are bracket fungi.
16. To what Fungi Division do bracket fungi belong?
17. Would you expect the cells of this organism to have cell walls?
18. Do they reproduce sexually?
19. Describe how they would get energy by growing on the side of a tree trunk.
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Station 7
On your walk back home, you take a shortcut through a cemetery.
You notice these organisms growing on the three and the gravestones.
20. What is the name for this symbiotic organism?
21. What two organisms pair up for this symbiosis?
22. What does each organism provide to the other?
23. How is this organism ecologically important?
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