Here i am getting a degree in Philosophy free of charge, and also getting this course in fungal reproduction for free out of curiosity. Lucky to be born in a country that values education enough to make it free.
Perhaps a thing to note (which helped me get a lot of confusion out of the way). In basidiomycota, for instance, the heterokaryotic cells first undergo mitosis to create the basidiocarp (the fruiting body, basically the visible mushroom); then in its gills in basidia these heterokaryotic cells fuse and become diploid, then undergo meiosis and create spores as a result of sexual reproduction.
I have been confused with fungal reproduction for like 2 years and haven't found a video this concise and clear anywhere... Thanks a lot for clearing my years long confusion!!!
Maybe it is because you did not get the basics of mitosis and meiosis in your intro biology course, which would make things even more confusing for you than it already is
Thank you so much!! It helped me so much, because my lecture notes had this exact same picture!! You made it very clear and easy to understand. Thank you!!
The mushroom (the fruiting body of a basidiomycete) is heterokaryotic. The only part that is diploid is the basidium which undergo meiosis to produce basidiospores, which are haploid.
Can I ask a questions? 1.) What is the importance of mitospores in the cell wall of fungi? 2.)What is the importance of meiospores in the cell wall of fungi?
Question, during the fusing of the two hyphae, are the two hyphae different cells with different DNA? If mycelium as a whole is one multicellular organism, wouldnt each hyphae contain the same DNA and therefore still produce an identical offspring?
If i remember correctly when they fuse it's one cell with both nuclei inside. Then they fuse when they are creating a mushroom or spores or something like that. It's kinda like they live in the same house till it's time to mate and produce spores. They don't fuse if it's mycelium from the same dna, because they don't have compatible mating types kinda like male and female but fungi can have many different "sexes".
4:31 It's a bit confusing that you drew the fruit bodies on the mycelium that mated since generally they have to mate first before they can produce fruit bodies aka mushrooms.
Kind of weird some people misunderstand that fungi have over 36,000 mating types and not sexes in the literal genetic sense infact the only two sexes in fungi is male and female
1:11 mycelium is NOT "almost like the roots of the mushroom", if anything the mushroom is the root of the mycelium as NO ONE grows mushrooms we ONLY grow mycelium and when the mycelium gets stressed it produces fruiting bodies. Thus the mycelium is like a apple tree, and the mushroom the apple the ONLY difference is that mycelium will NOT produce any fruiting bodies unless it's stressed, while trees ONLY produce fruit when there's enough nutrients as they have to chose either to focus energy on growth OR reproduction hence young trees DON'T reproduce as it's more important to establish themselves and grow tall thus killing their competition and THEN once they have full sun and access to water constantly (taproot into aquifer) THEN reproduce though apple trees often are grafted onto crabapple stumps, as you need BOTH sexes for them to produce fruit, thus it's common to graft on BOTH sexes onto the same rootstock (crabapple stump), that and you don't have to start from seed as you can use branches, thus MOST of our orchards contain very little genetic diversity. This is part of the reason that apple trees are VERY disease and pest prone as they LACK genetic varietation and ANYTIME you have very little genetic diversity over a large area you end up creating disease and pests issues which can wipe out the entire orchard, as normally diversity insures this is IMPOSSIBLE, thus only the weak trees die out thus creating a arms war, hence the level of diversity in rainforests AND the number of species in one acre of trees alone (normally 20-30 varieties) as plants ONLY tweak organic compounds to produce secondary metabolities (aka pest, weed, microbe repellant), thus the more varieties especially mycelium (as 90% of ALL plants form symbiotic relationships with fungi as fungi create a neural net, encourage beneficial bacterial growth while stopping pathogenic bacteria (hence ALL our anti bacterial drugs like penicillin come from FUNGI). Strange enough fungi seem to act as third party negotiator as they aren't the ones which can fix nitrogen from the air, but they do create little pods where they GROW nitrogen fixing bacteria as fungi seem to farm just like humans do as they digest food OUTSIDE their bodies, through promoting positive bacteria, and killing the rest. As bacteria does ALL the heavy lifting for the breakdown of compounds in both the plant, fungi and animal kingdoms, fungi just create the right enviroment, thus it benefits from BOTH the plant and the bacteria as the bacteria does the work and the fungi then trades nitrogen with the plant for sugar and the fungi gets a cut of BOTH. Hence nowadays organic farming is ALL about soil cultivation NOT plants as the plants can ONLY gain access to N,P, K, Mg, Ca, Mn, Fe etc.. If those minerals are in ion form thus they require the soil to make this possible, which is why inorganic farmers waste SO much fertilizer as they have to constantly apply more, as it leaks out of the soil as there is NOTHING in the soil to hold onto these ions and allow the plant to use them later.
Didn't read all of it, i would say it's like an apple tree with no trunks of leaves just the roots and when the time is right(not necessarily because it's stressed) the roots grow towards the surface and start growing apples.
