Classification of fungi

Classification (taxonomy):
Is the process of identifying, categorizing and naming living organisms based on certain characteristics
(morphological, biochemical and/or other biological), Classification of living organisms helps to explain the
interrelationships among diverse groups of organisms.

The classification of fungi has evolved significantly over time. Early systems relied on morphological
characteristics, leading to the recognition of various groups.

Old Classification of fungi

1. 18th Century: Linnaean System
• Carl Linnaeus (1753):
the father of modern taxonomy, originally placed fungi within the Plant Kingdom as part of
Cryptogamia, a group of non-flowering plants that also included algae, ferns, and lichens. At this time,
fungi were classified primarily based on:
their macroscopic features (mushrooms, molds) and
their lack of chlorophyll, which differentiated them from green plants but did not distinguish
them entirely from plants.

2. The Birth of the Kingdom Fungi (Mid-19th Century to Early 20th Century
• Christian Hendrik Persoon (1801):
Considered one of the founders of modern mycology, Persoon refined Linnaeus’s system by creating
more detailed classifications of fungi based on:
their reproductive structures (spore-bearing structures)
He separated fungi from other cryptogams and
proposed the genus-based classification still in use today.
 Traditional
classification of fungi

D: Myxomycota
D: Eumycota
(Slim moulds)

D: Eumycota

Mastigomycotina zygomycotina Ascomycotina Basidiomycotina Deuteromycotina

Hemiascomycetes
Hypochytridiomycetes Plectomycetes Teleomycetes
Zygomycetes
Chytridiomycetes Pyrenomycetes Hymenomycetes
Trichomycetes
Oomycetes Discomycetes Gastromycetes
Leucoascomycetes
 (Myxomycota and Eumycota.)

A- Myxomycota:

✓ Called slime mold

✓ differs from true fungi because their vegetative body consists of only protoplast bounded by membrane
and also for their phagotropic mode of nutrition.
✓ have no definite cell wall unlike Eumycota.
✓ primitive fungi so reproduction by producing spores in sporangia
✓ Form: Amoeba.
✓ Sexual reproduction:

by gametangia copulation (fusion of 2 amoeba or gametes to form zygote differentiate into

plasmodium)

✓ Asexual reproduction:

Formation of asexual spores germinates to form amoeboid cell

B-Eumycota

1- Mastigomycotina

✓ Form: coenocytic mycelium

✓ Sexual reproduction:

By sex organs (antheridium & oogonium to form oospores)

✓ Asexual reproduction:

Formation of sporangiospores inside sporangium.

✓ Commonly known as "zoosporic fungi"

✓ Adapted mostly in aquatic habitat.
✓ Most of them are filamentous & have coenocytic mycelium.
✓ However unicellular form are present, and some genera show the pseudosepta(false cross
wall)formation.
2- Zygomycotina.

✓ Sexual reproduction:

Gametangia contact between 2 coenocytic hyphae to form zygospores

✓ Asexual reproduction:

Formation of aplanospores (non-motile sporangiospore) inside sporangia.

✓ Form: Coenocytic mycelium can form septa at long intervals in old colonies.
✓ Zygomycetes are also called common molds because of their habit of growing on bread and other food.

3- Ascomycotina

✓ Form: septated and branched mycelium except in yeasts (unicellular).

✓ Sexual reproduction:

Sex organs to form fruit body (cleistothecium, perithecium, apothrcium) or somatogamy to form
pseudothecium

✓ Asexual reproduction:

Formation of many types of conidia

✓ Complete absence of flagellated cells.

✓ Cell wall contain large amount of chitin and less cellulose.
✓ Harmful or parasites, causing several diseases to plant and human
✓ Saprophytes and may produce useful vitamins & enzymes

4- Basidiomycotina

✓ Form: 2 type of mycelium primary (haploid n) and secondary(with clamp connection)

✓ Sexual reproduction:

Somatogamy to form fruit body to form basideospores or formation of basidiospores without

formation of fruit body

✓ Asexual reproduction:
 Formation of different conidia.

✓ Phylum Basidiomycota include mushrooms, puffballs, and shelf fungi

✓ Some basidiomycetes form mycorrhizae, and others are plant parasites
✓ The phylum is defined by a clublike structure called a basidium, a transient diploid stage in the life
cycle.

5- Deuteromycotina

✓ Having anamorph (conidia or asexual state) but till now teleomorph is absent.
✓ Fungi Imperfecti" or "Imperfect Fungi
✓ Do not possess the sexual structures that are used to classify other fungi
✓ Less well described in comparison to other divisions Cannot be called a true phylum
✓ Most members live on land with a few aquatic exceptions
✓ They form visible mycelia with a fuzzy appearance strictly asexual

Modern Classification of fungi

• Carl Woese (1977):

Woese’s work in molecular biology and phylogenetics, particularly the sequencing of ribosomal RNA
(rRNA), revolutionized the classification of all organisms, including fungi. His work led to:
the development of the three-domain system, but more importantly,
it allowed for the use of molecular data to reclassify fungi based on evolutionary relationships
rather than solely morphology.
This led to the reorganization of fungi into more accurate groups based on genetic similarity.
 Modern Molecular Classification
1. Modern Phylogenetics (1990s–Present):
The use of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions in DNA sequencing is now the standard for
fungal classification, allowing for more precise identification and classification of fungi.

Protozoa (slim moulds Chromista

Fungi (Eumycota)
or pseudofungi) (Straminophilia)

1-Hpochytridiomycota 1-Chytridiomycota

1-Myxostelida mainly aquatic forms 2-Zygomycota

2-Dictostelida 2-Oomycota 3-Mitosporic fungi

3-Labryinthalida ✓ Saprolegniales 4 Dikaryomycota

"saprophytic"
4-Plasmodiophorida ✓ Ascomycotina
✓ Peronosporales
✓ Basidiomycotina
"parasitic"
1. Protozoa (slim moulds or pseudofungi)
✓ Myxostelida
Also called Mycetozoa, phylum of fungus like organisms within the kingdom Protista, commonly
known as true slime molds.
Distributed worldwide, they usually occur in decaying plant material. About 500 species have
been described.
The vegetative (active, growing, feeding) phase consists of a multinucleate amoeboid mass or
sheet (plasmodium). This gives rise to fruiting structures (sporangia) with one to many spores at
the head of a stalk. In nearly all species, spores are borne within the sporangium.

✓ Dictyostelida
Commonly referred to as slime mold, a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of
unicellular amoebae into a multicellular slug and then into a fruiting body within its lifetime.
Its unique asexual lifecycle consists of four stages: ((vegetative, aggregation, migration, and
culmination)). The lifecycle is relatively short, which allows for timely viewing of all stages.
The feeding stage consists of solitary cells functioning individually. When food is low, cells follow
chemical trails to form an aggregate (pseudoplasmodium)

✓ plasmodiophorida

Plasmodiophora brassicae

Thick walled resting spores release zoospores - find new host by chemotaxis - encyst – inject
protoplast into root hair.
All members are obligate parasites of algae, fungi, or plants, causing cell enlargement, especially
of the plant roots. They are distinguished by the production of motile cells (zoospores) with two
unequal anterior flagella.
 ✓ Labryinthalida
The slime nets are fungus-like organisms that mainly are known for attacking sea grasses
Labyrinthalida lives as a collective of spindle-shaped cells within an anatomizing web of slime
tubes which are formed by specialized organelles called bothrosomes.
Shape: spindle or spherical non amoeboid cells
Most are in marine water
Zoospores are produced by most species

2. Chromista (Straminophilia)
✓ The Hyphochitryomycota
Anterior tinsel flagellum Aquatic habitat
Some parasites (on algae and fungi), others saprobes
Thallus is holocarpic or eucarpic, Holocarpic species are endobiotic, Eucarpic species may be mono-
or polycentric
Zoosporangia are inoperculate, zoospore release is through a discharge tube

✓ Oomycota: (saprolegniales, peronosporales)

rarely have septa
some are unicellular while other are branched.
They are filamentous and heterotrophics.
can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Sexual reproduction of an oospore is the result of
contact between hyphae of male antheridia and female oogonia;
have cell walls composed of cellulose and glycan, a diploid dominant lifecycle (2n).
Somatic Phase: The mycelium is coenocytic and produce the reproductive structures septa only to
separate assimilative portion of the thallus.
Asexual reproduction is by zoospores that are produced in zoosporangia. The zoospores produced
are biflagellated with one flagellum of the whiplash type and the other of the tinsel type.
3. Fungi (Eumycota)
✓ Chytridomycota
Habitat Soil from desert, ditches, and banks of ponds and streams, rumen of large mammals
Motile zoospores and gametes with a single whiplash flagellum Example- Allomyces
Sexual reproduction involves the formation of a sporophyte
Asexual by zoospores

✓ Zygomycota
all true fungi, produce cell wall contain chitin
Somatic phase as mycelia, hyphae which are generally coenocytic because they lack cross walls of
septa.
Gametangial Copulation is a type of sexual reproduction in zygomycota in general the gametangia
fuse with each other, lose their identity and develop into a zygospore
most reproduce asexually by producing sporangiospore.
Chlamydospores are another type of asexual spores different from sporangiospores

✓ Mitosporic Fungi
are fungi which do not fit into the commonly established taxonomic class of fungi that are based
on biological species concepts or morphological characteristics of sexual structures because
their sexual form of reproduction has never been observed.
They are known as imperfect fungi because only their asexual and vegetative phases are known.
They have asexual form of reproduction, meaning that these fungi produce their spores
asexually, in the process called sporogenesis.

✓ Dikaryomycota
Phylum Ascomycota
Most fungi are in the phylum Ascomycota, or sac fungi
Hyphae form a cup-shaped ascocarp, in which ascospores form.
Yeast are unicellular Ascomycota and they reproduce asexually by budding.
 Basidiomycota
Most familiar fungi (mushrooms, toadstools, puffballs, rusts, and smuts) named for characteristic
sexual reproductive structure, basidium Four haploid products of meiosis incorporated into
basidiospores
Mycelium made up of monokaryotic hyphae is called primary mycelium.
fusion of different mating types forms dikaryotic, secondary mycelium.

Fungal Life Cycles

Three types:
Haploid-most fungal hyphae and all spores have haploid nuclei
Diploid - diploid nuclei are found transiently during the sexual phase (if present)
Heterokaryon - unfused nuclei from different parents occupying the same unit of hypha.

Ascocarp is the fruiting body of Ascomycetes. Produces spores exogenously. Ascus has eight spores
Basidiocarp is the fruiting body of Basidiomycetes. Enclosed shape Bowl, spherical or club (flask
shape). Basidium has four spores.

References

1. Hawksworth, D. L., & Lücking, R. (2017). Fungal diversity revisited: 2.2 to 3.8 million species.
Microbiology Spectrum, 5(4), FUNK-0052-2016.

2. Hibbett, D. S., Binder, M., Bischoff, J. F., et al. (2007). A higher-level phylogenetic classification of the
Fungi. Mycological Research, 111(5), 509–547.

3. Kirk, P. M., Cannon, P. F., Minter, D. W., & Stalpers, J. A. (2008). Dictionary of the Fungi (10th ed.). CAB
International, Wallingford, UK.

4. Heitman, J., Howlett, B. J., Crous, P. W., et al. (2017). The Fungal Kingdom. ASM Press, Washington, DC.

5. Voigt, K., & Wöstemeyer, J. (2015). Phylogenetic relationships and classification of fungi. Mycological
Progress, 14(2), 101.

6. Schoch, C. L., Seifert, K. A., Huhndorf, S., et al. (2012). Nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer
(ITS) region as a universal DNA barcode marker for Fungi. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 109(16), 6241–6246.