What are fungi?
Fungi are eukaryotic organisms which are heterotrophic. Hence, fungi are not plants, since they do not produce their own food.
A fungus is a member of the Fungi kingdom.
There exists five phyla (sub-kingdoms) of fungi.
Oomycota
Chytridiomycota
Zygomycota
Ascomycota
Basidiomycota
Fungi are capable of reproducing either sexually or asexually, via spores.
The different taxonomic groups of fungi are grouped according to their level of cellular organisation. For example, the species classified as mushrooms are multicellular, filamentous organisms which contain one or two nuclei per cell. In comparison, the conjugating fungi (Zygomycota) are unicellular organisms which contain hundreds or thousands of nuclei per cell.
There are also fungus-like organisms. Slime molds (Mycomycetes) and water molds (Oomycetes) fall under such a category. However, they are merely imposters and are not actually fungi, and thus are called “fungus-like”. For one, they are genetically unrelated to fungi.
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