21st Century Guidebook to Fungi

Wikipedia points out that ‘biodiversity’ is a new portmanteau word made up from ‘biology’ and ‘diversity’ that probably arrived in the English language in 1985. Wikipedia defines ‘biodiversity’ as ‘the variation of taxonomic life forms within a given ecosystem, biome or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity). As an aside to this Wikipedia definition of biodiversity: given the fact that in the fossil record fungal biodiversity greatly increases during major extinction events (see Section 2.8) we are not convinced that fungal biodiversity is a good measure of the health of non-fungal biological systems!

In this Chapter 9 we will explain the meaning of the word ‘diversity’ in the context of the fungi, and then deal with its different aspects as they bear upon cells and tissues: mycelial differentiation and the different ways that fungi use for making spores. We describe Aspergillus conidiophores in some detail because something is known about the molecular regulation of Aspergillus sporulation. This is then compared with conidiation in Neurospora crassa. Finally, we make some general points about the nature and construction of fungal tissues and organs by describing conidiomata, and then linear structures like strands, cords, rhizomorphs and stipes; finishing off with the globose structures called sclerotia, stromata, ascomata and basidiomata.