BIOL 1001 Chapter : OUTLINE Chap23 Copy
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Mycelium -is the feeding network of a fungus. (see fig 23-1 a) Hyphae - the threadlike filaments of a fungus. (see fig 23-1 b) Chitin - a structural polysaccharide of modified sugars. The kingdom fungi consists of organisms that are eukaryotic and mainly multicellular. They are all heterotrophic decomposers that obtain their food by absorption. Most members of the kingdom fungi have several structural elements in common: This network may be very large but is usually underground or within the surface of a decaying organism. The mycelium is composed of a woven mesh of hyphae. These filaments are the building structure of the mycelium. They consist of a tubular cell wall containing chitin surrounding a plasma membrane and cytoplasm. In some fungi (coenocytic fungi) there are no separate cells and many nuclei are in a common cytoplasm. In other types of fungi (dikaryotic) the nuclei are partitioned into twos by septa.