 What if I tell you that fungi are so widely distributed on our planet that you can find them pretty much everywhere? Yes, really. In fact, you might not even have to step out of your house in order to see one. The greenish-black patches on that two-week-old bread, fungi. That bottle on the kitchen shelf which is marked activated east, fungi. The mushrooms growing on those damp logs in your garden, you know it, fungi. And you've probably noticed by now that they're wildly diverse too. Each of these fungi has its own set of unique features. And using these features, scientists were able to classify them over the years. But the thing is that in all this time, fungi classification has changed dramatically. Many scientists nowadays refer to newer, more advanced systems of classification. So in this video, that's what we're gonna do as well. We're gonna talk about some of the major phyla in Kingdom fungi and their distinct characteristics. And while we are doing so, we'll try to stick to the more recent versions of fungi classification rather than the older ones. So let's get into it. The first phyla we have over here is chytridium microta. I'll be honest, I didn't get that pronunciation right the first time. And neither did I know that this phylum existed up until I actually started looking into it. And it turns out that this phylum houses all of the simplest, most primitive fungi to ever exist on our planet. Most of these chytrids, that's what you call the members of this phylum, most of these chytrids are unicellular organisms that are often found in water bodies or wet soils. And like every other fungi, they also have chytinas cell walls and exhibit saprotrophic or parasitic nutrition. However, what truly sets chytrids apart from the rest of the fungi are their motile zoospores. The spores that the chytrids produce, they're called zoospores, and each of them come equipped with a flagellum like this. And using this flagellum, the zoospore can actively move around or swim around all on their own. And mind you, no other fungal spore can do this. They are the only motile spores to exist and chytrids are the ones that can produce these spores. A very famous example or a very famous chytrid is this organism right here, which is called allomycetes. Next up, we have the zygomycetes, members of the phylum Zygomycota. And we've already come across a zygomycete before. Remember the stale moldy bread at the beginning of this video? Well, the fungus that grows on stale bread, it's called the common bread mold. And that is scientifically called rhizopastolonephyr, which is this fungus right over here. So if you take a piece of that moldy bread and place it under a microscope, this is what you're going to see. Now, the most fascinating thing about zygomycetes is how they reproduce sexually. Normally, they reproduce asexually with the help of something called sporangiospores, which are these spores that are formed inside a structure called a sporangium. You can actually see a sporangium right over here. So this bulb-like structure here, this is the sporangium, sporangium. And inside of this is where the sporangiospores are formed. And sporangiospores are the way to go normally when things are fine. But when the environmental conditions become unfavorable, the fungus or these fungi, they resort to sexual reproduction. That is when sexual reproduction takes place. So let's take a look at this process. So during sexual reproduction, what really happens is that two compatible haploid hyphae will start extending towards each other till their tips touch, kind of like this. And the minute the tip touches, what happens is that it kind of walls off a section or a portion of this tip. So let's say it starts to wall off somewhere here by forming something called a septum, which you can think of it like a partition. So this is a septum. I'll just write it down over here. So it starts to wall off a certain section by forming this septum. And once this partition is done or this walling off is done, what will happen is that everything in this portion right over here will fuse together, even the nuclei. Now over here I have, you can see that there are only two nuclei, but usually what happens like this is just an image that I've drawn, but in real life, like in nature, when this fusing happens, there are many haploid nuclei which are present in this area, depending on where this wall off thing happens, where the partition begins to appear. So based on where the partition appears, many haploid nuclei are present in between or they are trapped in between this section of the extension or the tips basically. So now what happens, these nuclei, they will also fuse along with the tips. So after all of the fusion, what really happens, what we get at the end of that is this zygospore. So this haploid nuclei will fuse with this haploid nuclei and give us this purple one. And again the same thing happens with these two nuclei and we have two basically diploid nuclei because the haploid nuclei, they're fused, right? So in the end, we finally have a zygospore which contains multiple diploid nuclei. Now what happens after this, this zygospore will eventually undergo meiosis. And because of meiosis, what will happen? This diploid nuclei will become haploid nuclei because of the meiosis that happens. And each of these haploid nuclei, each of them separately will become a haploid spore. And that is how through sexual reproduction, these haploid sexual spores are formed. Now this type of sexual reproduction where the tips of the hyphae fuse together to give this zygospore which eventually gives us haploid spores, this entire process is called conjugation. And because of this, because of this conjugation process, zygomycetes are often referred to as conjugated fungi. Moving on, the third phylum on our list is Ascomycota. These fungi are characterized by the presence of something called a sci or an ascus. An ascus is a sac-like structure which contains the haploid sexual spores called asco spores. So these bead-like structures that you can see inside this sac-like thingy, so these are the asco spores inside the ascus. And because of this sac-like structure, these fungi are also called sac fungi. During sexual reproduction, asco spores are formed inside thousands of a sci, which in turn are found inside of a spore-bearing structure called an asco carb. Now this, so basically what happens, these asco spores, they are formed inside this ascus or inside the sci. And these sci is in turn found inside something called the asco carb, which is a spore-bearing structure. So inside this you will find the sci and inside the sci you will find the asco spores. Now the process of sexual reproduction goes something like this. Plasmo gamia or fusion of cytoplasm takes place between two compatible haploid cells and the fused cell enters a dichariotic stage where the nuclei, the haploid nuclei, they remain free. Eventually these nuclei will also fuse, that means cariogamy will take place and we will end up with a diploid zygote inside the ascus. This zygote will further undergo meiosis and that will give us the haploid asco spores. These asco spores are then released into the environment and they end up germinating at suitable places. Ascomi seeds also undergo asexual reproduction by producing asexual spores called cunidia. Ascomi seeds are incredibly helpful to us as well, especially commercially and a very important example of that is yeast. Remember how we talked about dry activated yeast being something that we can find in our kitchen. So we use yeast in a variety of different things like baking, brewing, fermenting wine and a bunch of different things. So yeast is an ascomi seed which is extremely important to us. Other examples of ascomi seeds include truffles, then there are morals. These are treated as delicacies in different parts of the world. Then there's also aspergillus which is something you might have heard of which is also an ascomi seed. So these are some examples of ascomi seeds. The next major phylum is that of the mushrooms aka phylum Basidiomycota. Basidiomycota seeds are easily recognized by their club shaped spore bearing structures called Basidia. Now there's only one structure here so this will be a Basidium that's the singular form and because of this club shaped Basidium or Basidia, these fungi are also called club fungi. Now where will you find this Basidium or where will you find all the Basidia? You will find them on the gills of the mushrooms. So these are lines that you can see these are the gills of the mushroom which are found on the underside of the cap and this whole protruding thing with the cap and everything that is the fruiting body of the mushroom called the Basidium carp. So this entire thing, let's pick a different color we can't really see it in here. So this entire thing the protruding part of the mushroom which is you know on the top of the soil that we can see. This is the fruiting body which is called the Basidio carp. So that means the Basidio carp bears the Basidia on the gills. Now inside each Basidium, Basidio spores which are these sexual spores by the way they are produced and these Basidio spores they are produced in very similar to how the Asco spores are produced. So once these haploid Basidio spores they are formed they will be released into the environment from the Basidio carp and then they will germinate into new fungi. Now remember all mushrooms, torch stools, then shelf fungi, then smuts and rusts all these types of fungi they belong to Phylum Basidium Icota. So they are all Basidium Icids. Now if you're wondering why I didn't mention an asexual reproduction here that's because usually all Basidium Icids reproduce sexually. So that's why we are not discussing about the asexual reproduction here. Now these are just some of the major phyla which has been included in Kingdom fungi now that doesn't mean that these are the only phyla by the way. There are other different phyla as well. For example, Glomerome Icota is one such phylum which is there in Kingdom fungi but one that we didn't really discuss here. This includes fungi which live in very close association with plant roots. There's another group that you might have heard of called Deuteromycetes aka the Imperfect Fungi. You know the fungi that do not show a sexual phase in their reproductive cycles at all. So those are the Deuteromycetes but the thing is that Deuteromycota is not considered to be a true phylum. Why? Because their members are more closely related to organisms from other phyla than each other. Let me explain this to you with an example. Aspergillus was earlier thought to be a Deuteromycete but after a lot of research and a lot of studies and molecular analysis they finally found out that Aspergillus is more closely related to Ascomycetes rather than Deuteromycetes. So that's a completely different phylum right? Ascomycota. In fact we literally wrote down Aspergillus in the lesson today under Ascomycota. So that's how Aspergillus was moved from Deuteromycota to Ascomycota. And that is why Deuteromycota or Deuteromycetes they are not considered to be a true member or a true phylum for that matter. So you see, fungi classification is an ever-changing, ever-improving ordeal. It's not set in stone. Who knows that maybe a few decades from now we'll have a completely new system of classification for all of these fungi. It is that dynamic.