PLSCI 6300 - Mycology

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with PLSCI 4300.

T. Pawlowska.

Fungi are one of the major lineages of eukaryotes and the sister group of animals. We will consider evolutionary relationships among different groups of fungi, their ecology and significance to humans. We will explore fungal lifestyles, their reproduction, and the ways that fungi use to communicate with each other and with their symbiotic partners. In addition to true fungi, we will study several distantly related groups of organisms that share with fungi absorptive nutrition, filamentous somatic structures, and spore-based reproduction. We will reconstruct fungal phylogenies using molecular evolution methods. We will also isolate fungi from the environment and identify them using morphological and molecular approaches.

Outcome 1: Familiarity with methods of phylogeny reconstruction for taxonomic identification of organisms.

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Outcome 2: Ability to characterize major groups of fungi and their life histories.

Outcome 3: Familiarity with different fungal nutrition modes: saprotrophy, biotrophy, hemibiotrophy, and necrotrophy.

Outcome 4: Appreciation of the links between fungal lifestyle and reproductive biology, i.e. loss of sex in mutualists vs. importance of recombination in parasites.

Outcome 5: Understanding principles that regulate fungal mating versus vegetative compatibility.

Outcome 6: Appreciation for the roles of fungi as: decomposers, mutualists of plants (endophytes, mycorrhizae, lichens) and animals (gut microbiota), pathogens of plants and animals, model systems for biology, sources of food, antibiotics, organic acids, allergens, toxins and carcinogens.