FUNGI CULTURE OBSERVATION By Group REJ

FUNGI CULTURE OBSERVATION
By Group REJ

Group Members: Jaena Ristel Bautista, Robert Barker, Nhung Nguyen

PEARL OYSTER MUSHROOM

Introduction:

    Our group had to water the oyster mushroom twice a day for two weeks. There were three different mushrooms to choose one of the three to take care of Shiitaki mushrooms, Pearl Oyster Mushroom and Lion’s mane. We were able to take our Pearl Oyster Mushroom home after two week’s and enjoy it with our dinner. We had to keep the temperature for our mushroom to grow above 60 degrees and below 75 degrees.

Pearl Oyster Mushroom Classification:

Domain: Eukarya

Members of Eukarya are characterized by the presence of membrane bound organelles and a true nucleus bound by a nuclear envelope.

Kingdom: Fungi

Fungi are heterotrophs that exhibit alternation of generations, meaning that both the diploid and haploid stages of its life cycle exhibit multicellularity. They have cell walls made of chitin and reproduce via spores.

   

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Basidiomycota contains club shaped structures called basidia where sexual spores are produced.

However, Basidiomycota also includes single-celled forms (yeasts) and asexual species.

Class:  Agaricomycetes

The agaricomycetes are mushroom producing fungi. Most mushroom producing fungi are members of this class.

Order:  Agaricales

The agaricales are traditionally known as the gilled mushrooms.

Family:   Pleurotacea

Pleurotaceae is a family gilled mushrooms, most of whom are saprotrophic on wood substrate with some members of the family able to derive nutrition from nematodes.

Genus:  Pleurotus

All members of the genus Pleurotus are nematophageous with most being saprotrophic on wood. The fruiting bodies are usually flat with the cap offset from the stalk, or the stalk hardly present at all. The spores leave a lilac, grey, or white spore print.

Species: Pleurotus ostreatus

Pleurotus ostreatus (roughly translating to "beside-the-ear oyster-shaped") predominantly grows on hardwoods throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. It has a pale lilac-grey spore print and a soft fleshy fruiting body that ranges in color from white to grey, brown or even blackish.  There's some variability among the species due to the wide distribution and reproductive isolation between continents.

REPRODUCTION: (SEXUAL)

-It begins it's life as a haploid spore that's released from the basidium
-It germinates into a haploid mycelia that grows and feeds
-The haploid mycelia meets another haploid mycelia of a compatible mating type and they undergo plasmogamy, fusion of their cell membranes to create a dikaryotic cell, one with two genetically different haploid nuclei
-The new dikaryotic cell multiplies and divides to live as a multi-cellular dikaryotic organism. This is the dominant stage of a fungal life cycle and Pleurotus ostreatus will spend a majority of its life in this phase while growing and gathering nutrients.
-The mushroom develops dikaryotic basidia that line the surface area of the gills.
-The nuclei in the basidia finally undergo karyogamy, fusion of the nuclei, and at last form a diploid nucleus that     quickly undergoes meiosis.
-Each diploid nucleus yields four haploid nuclei of different mating types that develop into a basidiospore to repeat the cycle.

Other Information:

• Saprophytic lifestyle
• adopt their nutrition from other decaying organisms
• grow on decaying wood and trees, spreading their hyphae into the plant to feed on carbohydrate-rich cellulose
• prefers the lignin that makes up the secondary cell walls of hard woods from angiosperm trees
• fruiting body of the mushroom never develops these secretory cells, so you don't have to worry about ingesting any toxins when you cook up your own oyster mushrooms
• grows in temperate biomes globally, especially in North America, Europe, and Asia

Source: http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/2011/woller_ryan/index.htm

OBSERVATIONS

WEEK 2

Our Pearl Oyster Mushroom grew numerous number of spores! Due to millions of these spores, most of them fell down on the basket. It looks like granulated powder. The spores grew mostly from the gills of the mushroom.

WEEK 3

On week 3, we observed that the mushrooms dried off and died. (Maybe because it was sprayed with too much water!- we really do not know why) In addition to that, the mushroom was also observed with fungi on them! “Fungi on a fungi” Cool or not?

“Fungi on fungi mushroom”

Here is a microscopic view of the fungi that grew on our Pearl Oyster Mushroom. We are thinking that these round structures are the spores of the new fungi.

WEEK 7

The regrowth of our oyster mushroom

In growing our mushroom, we could say that it was very successful and fun! We enjoyed observing it grow especially when we saw how much spores it could produce. These mushrooms are really easy to grow and tastes good too! (Yes, they are edible!). We would definitely recommend growing these mushrooms for the next classes.

PILOBOLUS

Introduction:

 

    The pilobolus required less amount of work than the mushroom did. Our group had to cover the pilobolus with a styrofoam cup and make a hole in the top. The hole in the top made it so that the pilobolus could grow through the cup over a period of a few days.

   

Pilobolus Classification:

Domain: Eukarya

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum: Zygomycota

Class: Mucoromycotina

Order:  Mucorales

Family: Pilobolaceae  

Pilobolaceae that are known for their explosive spore dispersal

Genus:  Pilobolus

REPRODUCTION:(ASEXUAL)

• The Pilobolus life cycle begins when a herbivore defecates.
• Pilobolus mycelium (the cobweb-like hyphae through which the fungi eats) grow and feed on the manure.
• As the Pilobolus feeds and grows, it develops sporangia, which contain the Pilobolus' reproductive spores.

***The Pilobolus must move because herbivorous animals won't feed near dung piles and Pilobolus needs to be ingested by a herbivore for the essential next phase in its life cycle***

• the Pilobolus launches its sporangia into the air, sometimes more than 6 feet. Thus the Pilobolus spreads out over its habitat and significantly increase its chances of being eaten by a cow, deer, horse or other herbivore
• A herbivore feeds on grass containing Pilobolus sporangia. The sporangia passes through the animal's digestive system without harm. The animal defecates the spores.

Other Information:

• Pilobolus species feed saprobically on the feces of herbivores
• Pilobolus is not a parasite that steals nutrients from its host and it does not appear to cause any human, plant or animal diseases
• It cannot produce its own food, so it lives on the undigested plants, bacteria, water and minerals ---particularly nitrogen --- in the dung of herbivores
• These fungi are diminutive, usually less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) in height, and are characterized by a sparse mycelium (fungal body) that produces unbranched sporangiophores (fruiting bodies) capped with black sporangia (spore clusters).
• use a phototropic (light-following) squirt-gun mechanism to disperse their sporangia up to 3 metres (10 feet) away from the parent fungus and onto uncontaminated vegetation.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilobolus

http://www.britannica.com/science/Pilobolus-fungus-genus

http://www.gardenguides.com/135863-pilobolus-life-cycle.html

OBSERVATIONS

As we can see on the pictures of the Pilobolus on the cup, spores from the sporangia was shot out. Especially, the Pilobolus orient themselves at the light sources and shoot their spores in that direction so that the spores can travel further from the excrement. This makes the chances of the spores being eaten higher. We think that the asexual reproduction of the Pilobolus is more complicated than the asexual reproduction of other fungi because it still needs to take place inside of a herbivore as well as light is needed for the reproduction process. Compared to the Pearl Oyster Mushroom, the Pilobolus grew less spores.