Preface The literature on fungi is huge and expanding rapidly. Many undergraduate students do not have sufficient time to read original publications, and rely solely on the course teacher due to non-availability of illustrated practical book in this field. We have therefore, tried to give important and useful information at one place. The main emphasis of this book is to present the fungi in such a simple way which can be understood by students. This book is designed to fulfil the syllabus by covering various aspects of fungi. It provides something for everyone from beginners to advanced students and researchers. There has been a continuous need to add at least some additional recent text and more illustrations to the book for the subject which will benefit the students. Fortunately through the use of computer tremendous advances have been made particularly in the reproducibility of the photographs and diagrams for the effective teaching. Mycology came alive when the diagrams of wide variety of fungi have been given at every possible place. For this book, we drew heavily on numerous sources of information, Journals and the internet for illustrations. The taxonomic framework of the fungi has been based on the book, “The fungi: An Advance Treatise” vol. IV A and IV B written by G.C. Ainsworth, F.K. Sparrow and A.S. Sussman. We are thankful to Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Gwalior, M.P., India for giving the permission to write this book. We are grateful to our family members for their patience, involvement and untiring support. The authors have attempted to trace and acknowledge the copy right holder of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copy holders if permission and acknowledgement to publish in this form have not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged, please write and let us know so that we may rectify it. There may be many errors and omissions and the authors will be highly indebted to those who will put their healthy suggestions in the improvement of the book. Such types of criticism/suggestions/ideas are always welcome by the authors.

1.1 Introduction Fungi are chlorophyll-less thallophytic plant. Due to absence of chlorophyll, they are heterophytes which depend on other form of life for food. They grow in various habitats and show much diversity in their structure, physiology and reproduction. They evoloved long back from the ancient time. Their existence was recorded from Pre-cambrian period. Information from ancient literature indicates that the fungi were used as food by men. At present, the fungi are used in medicine as well as food in addition to other aspects. The fungi cause diseases in crop plants (spots, rusts, smuts etc.) and on human beings (Aspergillosis, Blastomycosis etc.). At present biologists use the term fungus (fungus mushroom, from Greek, sponagos = sponge) to include eukaryotic, spore bearing, achlorophyllous organism that generally reproduce sexually and asexually and whose usually filamentous, branched somatic structure are typically surrounded by cell wall containing chitin or cellulose or both of these substances, togather with many other complex molecules More than 1.5 million species (Hawksworth 2001; Kirk et al., 2001) of fungi have been recorded, but their number may be much more than the actual record. The subject which deals with fungi is known as Mycology (mykes — mushroom; logos—study) and the concerned scientist is called mycologist. The various definitions of fungi as proposed by mycologists are: Alexopoulos (1962) defined fungi as “nucleated, spore-bearing, achlorophyllous organisms which generally reproduce sexually and asexually and whose usually filamentous, branched somatic structures are typically surrounded by cell walls containing cellulose or chitin or both”. Alexopoulos and Mims (1979) defined fungi as eukaryotic spore bearing, achlorophyllous organisms that generally reproduce sexually and asexually, and whose usually filamentous, branched somatic structures are typically surrounded by cell walls containing chitin or cellulose, or both of these substances, together with many other complex organic molecules.

According to G.C. Ainsworth (1973) the fungus is free-living, parasitic or mutualistic, saprotrophs, necrotrophs or biotrophs and devoid of chlorophyll. Cell wall composition very variable, majority contain chitin and glucans, reserve materials glycogen, oil and mannitol, characteristic disaccharide and trehalose. Some yeast-like but majority with thread-like filaments, hyphae, branched profusely to form the vegetative mycelium on which spores are produced, asexually or sexually, free on hyphae or enclosed in complex reproductive structures. Separated mainly on morphology of the latter. 2.1 Divisions: Myxomycota These are wall-less and quite unusual organisms only included in the fungi as mostly studied by mycologists. Possess either a plasmodium, a mass of naked, multinucleate protoplasm, which feeds any ingesting particulate matter and moves by amoeboid cells. Both of slimy consistencies hence slime molds. Four classes: 2.1.1 Class: Acrasiomycetes (Cellular slime molds) Assimilative phase, free living amoebae which aggregate to form a pseudoplasmodium before reproduction.

Fungi are achlorophyllus so they have to depend on other organisms hence heterotrophic nutrition. Depending on the nutrition, fungi are classified as Saprophytes, Parasites and Symbionts. 3.1 Saprophyte (sapros = rotten; phyton = plant) Fungi which get their nutrition only from dead organic are called saprophytes ex: Saprolegnia, Rhizopus, Mucor, Alternaria etc. 3.1.1 Facultative saprophyte (Facultas = ability) Ability of a fungus to become saprophyte. It is a parasite ex. Ustilago 3.1.2 Obligate saprophyte (obligate = to bind itself) When they strictly get their food only from dead organic matter and can never become parasites are called obligate saprophyte ex. Mucor.

Reproduction in fungi is the formation of new individuals having all the characters of species. It is of two types. Asexual, somatic, or vegetative reproduction does not involve the union of nuclei of sex cells or sex organs. Sexual reproduction is characterized by the union of two opposite nuclei. During reproduction entire thallus is converted into one or more reproductive units. It is called holocarpic fungi (holo = whole, korpos = fungi) ex. Plasmodiophora and Synchytrium. In Plasmodiophora vegetative body is plasmodium, which is transformed into reproductive structure. In some fungi only a part of thallus is transformed into one or more reproductive structures. (eu = true, good, carpus = fruit). These fungi are known as eucarpic. Both somatic and reproductive structures coexist. Ex. Rhizopus, Puccinia and Helminthosporium.

There are great variations in the life cycles of fungi. Raper (1954, 1966b) recognizes seven basic types. 5.1 Asexual cycle In which sexual reproduction apparently lacks and diploidy is restricted to somatic diploids. The entire groups known as Fungi Imperfecti and numerous other species which clearly belong to various groups of the perfect fungi such as Penicillium notatum have this life cycle. Certain benefits of sexuality are provided here in many of the sterile forms by para sexual recombination.

In the classification given below only those groups have been given emphasis which contain plant pathogenic fungi or which are important from taxonomic point of view. The description includes only critical features.

For growing fungi, a wide range of media are used. Media affect colony morphology and color. For utilizing different carbon sources some fungi lack the necessary enzymes. For growth and reproduction all fungi require several specific elements. The requirements for growth are generally less specific than for sporulation, so it is often necessary to try several types of media when attempting to identify a fungus in culture. Sporulating cultures should be used because repeated transfers of a pathogen on artificial media usually result in loss of sporulation or pathogenicity or both. Transfer should be made using spores and cultured alternately on nutrient rich and poor culture media. Most fungi thrive on potato dextrose agar (PDA), but in some fungi excessive mycelial growth is obtained at the expense of sporulation. Similarly, wood-inhabiting fungi and dematiaceous (dark pigmented) fungi often sporulate better on Corn meal agar (CMA) or Oat Agar, both of which have less easily digestible carbohydrate than PDA. Cellulose-destroying fungi grow on a weak medium such as Water Agar (WA) or Potato Carrot Agar (PCA). By adding pieces of tissue, such as filter paper, wheat straw, rice, grains, leaves or dung, often produces good sporulation dependent on the organism grown. Some special methods of inducing sporulation in fungi.

Diagnosis of plant diseases require some knowledge of light microscopy to examine infected tissues for the presence of plant pathogens. Most of the pathogens and the diseases caused by them can be identified quickly by using different methods such as section or cutting of infected tissue, squashes of scrapping of plant surface. Homecare, the detail study enquires ultrastructural examination of the pathogen.. Electron microscope rely on a beam of electrons produced from a hot filament (e.g. tungsten) and its power of resolution is much greater than light microscope. Electron microscope are of two type

When any serious work is undertaken involving the use of living cultures it is necessary to keep these alive for use during the work and for future reference. This can be done either by growing on a suitable substrate and transferring to fresh media, as the nutrient is used up or by treating the cultures in some way, which halts metabolism until they are revived for use. The former method is time consuming and cultures are at risk whenever they are handled, so various means are devised which can lengthen the periods between sub culturing. The latter methods tend to be complex and expensive.

Bibliography Ainsworth, G.C. and Sussman, A.S. (1965). The Fungi: an advanced treatise Eds. Vol. I, “The Fungal Cell”, Academic Press, New York. Ainsworth, G.C. and Sussman, A.S. (1966). The Fungi: an advance treatise, Vol. II, “The fungal Organism”, Academic Press, New York. Ainsworth, G.C. and Sussman, A.S. (1968). The Fungi: an advanced treatise Eds. Vol. III, “A Taxonomic Review with Keys: The Fungal Population”. Academic Press, New York. Ainsworth, G.C.; Sparrow, F.K. and Sussman, A.S. (1973). The Fungi: an advance treatise, Vol. IVA, “Ascomycetes and fungi Imperfecti”, Academic Press, New York. Ainsworth, G.C.; Sparrow, F.K. and Sussman, A.S. (1973). The Fungi: an advance treatise, Vol. IV B, “Basidomycetes and Lower Fungi”, Academic Press, New York. Alexopoulos, C. J.; Mims, C. W. and Blackwell, M. (1996). “Introductory Mycology”, 4th Eds., John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York. Anton, S.M. Sonnenberg; Johan, J.P. Baars; Patrick, M. HendrickX; Brian, Lavrijssen; Wei, Gao; Amrah, Weijn snd Jurriaan J. Mes (2011). Breeding and strain protection in the button mushroom Agaricus bisporus, Proc. 7th Int. Conf. Mushroom Bio. Mushroom Prod., Arcachon, France.