Emma Wilson
Mushrooms are a type of fungus, which were considered plants until 1969. Fungi are incredibly diverse, and some are parasitic. Parasitic fungi attack living organisms, penetrate their defenses, and obtain nourishment from living cytoplasm, causing disease or death. Some parasitic plants also feed on mushrooms and mold.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| What are parasitic mushrooms? | The fruiting bodies of parasitic fungi that get the nutrients they need to survive from a living host. |
| Are mushrooms parasitic plants? | No, mushrooms are fungi. Fungi are distinct from plants. |
| How do parasitic mushrooms behave? | They invade and feed on other living organisms, including plants, animals, insects, and other fungi. They extract nutrients from the organism's living tissue, often causing damage and sometimes killing the host. |
| Are there parasitic plants? | Yes, about 1% of flowering plants, or around 4,000 species, are parasitic. |
| How do parasitic plants behave? | Parasitic plants use a structure called a haustorium to penetrate their host plant and drain nutrition. Some parasites grow within the plant and only emerge to flower, while others attach their haustoria externally. |
| What are some examples of parasitic plants? | Mistletoe, dodder, and ghost plant. |
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What You'll Learn
Mushrooms are fungi, not plants
Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi, which are distinct from plants. Fungi have historically been grouped with plants, but modern molecular evidence demonstrates that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Fungi, plants, and animals are considered different kingdoms as they have no common ancestor within the last half billion years or so.
Fungi reproduce using spores, which are not exactly like the seeds of plants. Spores are an asexual form of reproduction and are so light and small that they can travel on gentle air currents.
Fungi also respire like animals, requiring oxygen to thrive while expelling carbon. In contrast, plants take in carbon and expel oxygen.
While most mushrooms are saprotrophs, some are parasitic, feeding on a range of living organisms, including plants, animals, insects, and other fungi. Parasitic fungi invade their hosts and extract nutrients from their living tissue, sometimes causing damage or even killing the host.
Elm oyster mushrooms, for example, are classified as parasites and saprotrophs, as scientists are unsure whether they feed on living or dead tissue on host trees.
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Parasitic fungi invade and feed on other organisms
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm. Parasites include single-celled protozoans, animals such as hookworms and lice, and plants such as mistletoe. Parasites can also be fungi, such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm.
Parasitic fungi form relationships with other organisms to obtain nutrients. They attack living organisms, penetrate their outer defenses, invade them, and obtain nourishment from living cytoplasm, causing disease and sometimes death. Most pathogenic fungi are parasites of plants. They enter the host through a natural opening, such as a stoma (microscopic air pore) in a leaf or a lenticel (small opening) in a stem. Once inside, they form a mycelial network within the invaded tissue and draw nutrients from the host.
Some parasitic fungi, such as Cordyceps militaris, invade living insect pupae and draw nutrients from them to enable the fungus to grow and generate spores for reproduction. The fungal genus Septobasidium is parasitic on scale insects that feed on trees. The fungus sinks haustoria into the bodies of the insects and feeds on them without killing them, but the insects are rendered sterile. The uninfected members of the colony ensure the perpetuation of the insect species and the spread of the fungus, which protects them from enemies.
While most mushrooms are saprotrophs, a few parasitic fungi produce mushrooms and are both saprotrophic and parasitic. Parasitic mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of parasitic fungi that get their nutrients from a living host. Poplar and elm oyster mushrooms are examples of parasitic mushrooms that are also edible and medicinal.
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Most mushrooms are saprotrophs, not parasites
Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi that use various methods to obtain the nutrients they need to survive. Fungi can be classified into four groups based on how they obtain these nutrients: saprotrophic fungi, parasitic fungi, mycorrhizal fungi, and endophytes. While some mushrooms rely on multiple methods and fall into more than one of these groups, most mushrooms are saprotrophs, not parasites.
Saprotrophic fungi, also known as decomposers, obtain their nutrients from dead and decaying organic matter. They release enzymes into the non-living organic matter around them, breaking down complex organic materials into simpler molecules that the fungi can then absorb. This process, known as absorptive nutrition, is essential for ecosystem nutrient cycles as it replenishes the soil with nutrients that plants and other organisms can easily absorb. Without saprotrophic fungi, falling trees would not decompose, and the nutrients would not be returned to the soil. Examples of saprotrophic mushrooms include oyster mushrooms, which are popular among growers because they are hardy and can grow on various substrates like straw, sawdust, cardboard, and coffee grounds.
On the other hand, parasitic fungi obtain their nutrients from living organisms, including plants, animals, insects, and even other fungi. They invade and feed on their hosts, extracting nutrients from the living tissue. This often causes damage to the host and sometimes even leads to the host's death. Parasitic fungi are not the largest group of fungi, indicating that most fungi are not parasites. While some parasitic fungi, like elm oyster mushrooms, are edible and prized for their culinary applications, they are more challenging to cultivate than saprotrophic mushrooms because they require living host organisms to grow.
It is worth noting that some mushrooms, like elm oyster mushrooms, are classified as both parasites and saprotrophs. In these cases, scientists are unsure whether the mushrooms feed on living or dead tissue from their host organisms.
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Phytopathogenic fungi infect plants
Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi, which can be parasitic. Parasitic fungi invade and feed on other living organisms, including plants, animals, insects, and other fungi. They extract nutrients from the host's living tissue, often causing damage and sometimes killing the host. While most fungi are not parasites, those that are can be classified as phytopathogenic if they use plant hosts.
Mycologists call the parasitic fungi that use plant hosts phytopathogenic fungi, and mildews, rusts, and smuts are some examples. Phytopathogenic fungi form mycelial networks inside the tissue of their plant hosts and absorb food from the host's cells. Most parasitic fungi feed on plants, but some live off insects (entomopathogenic fungi) or require animal hosts (zoo-pathogenic fungi).
Phytopathogenic fungi are plant pathogens that colonize the surface or inside of plants as exopytes or endopytes, respectively. They are among the dominant causal agents of plant diseases and possess a wide range of enzymes that can destroy the carbohydrate polymers that make up the cell walls. Fungi can infect woody plants and trees, causing wood necrosis, wood discoloration, vascular infections, and white decays. Grapevine trunk disease (GTD) is, for example, considered the most destructive grapevine disease, encompassing pathologies such as leaf stripe disease, Eutypa dieback, and black foot.
To colonize plants and cause disease, phytopathogenic fungi use diverse strategies. Some fungi kill their hosts and feed on dead material (necrotrophs), while others colonize living tissue (biotrophs). Biotrophic fungal pathogens colonize living plant tissue and obtain nutrients from living host cells. Necrotrophic fungal pathogens, on the other hand, infect and kill host tissue before extracting nutrients from the dead host cells. During the infection process, phytopathogenic fungi secrete effector proteins that play important roles in plant cells and affect the interaction between the fungi and their hosts. These effector proteins can interfere with the plant's immune response, allowing the fungi to suppress plant immunity and establish disease.
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Parasitic fungi can also infect insects
Parasitic fungi, including those that produce mushrooms, invade and feed on other living organisms, such as plants, animals, insects, and other fungi. While most mushrooms are saprotrophs, certain parasitic fungi can produce mushrooms and are both saprotrophic and parasitic. These parasitic fungi manipulate their insect hosts to spread their spores and reproduce.
For example, the parasitic fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, commonly known as the "zombie-ant fungus," infects ants and manipulates their behaviour. Infected ants exhibit erratic behaviour, such as climbing to elevated positions and forcefully gripping leaf veins before their eventual death. After the ant's death, a mushroom grows from its head, and the fungus uses the cadaver to produce and release spores, infecting more ants.
Another example is the fungus Metarhizium, which infects a wide range of insects, including honeybees, ants, and termites. These social insects exhibit hygienic behaviours, such as mutual grooming, to resist the infection. They may also raise their body temperature to inhibit the growth of the fungus.
Cordyceps militaris is a parasitic fungus that specifically targets caterpillars, while B. bassiana and M. robertsii are generalist species that can infect hundreds of different insect species. These fungi manipulate the behaviour of their hosts to maximize spore transmission and initiate new infection cycles.
In summary, parasitic fungi can infect insects, manipulate their behaviour, and utilize them to spread their spores. Insects, in turn, evolve defensive mechanisms, such as grooming and social immunity, to resist and avoid infections. This dynamic relationship between parasites and their insect hosts offers insights into the complex interplay between different organisms in nature.
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Frequently asked questions
No, mushrooms are fungi, which were considered plants until 1969.
No, but some parasitic plants feed on mushrooms and mould.
An example of a parasitic plant is the recently discovered Japanese species, Sciaphila sugimotoi.
Some common parasitic fungi include downy mildews, powdery mildews, and rusts.
