Lab Exercise 7: The Fungi: Molds And Yeasts

Maha Giundi

Dr. Christos Dimos

SCI4061

March 26, 2015

Lab Exercise 7: The Fungi: Molds and Yeasts

Purpose: The purpose of this lab experiment is to observe examples of asexual and sexual structures of different types of fungal structures. This experiment is to also compare and contrast sexual structures of the three major fungi divisions; zygomycota, ascomycota, and basidiomycota.

Hypothesis: I expect that the three sexual structures of fungi will appear to be visibly different and reflect the shapes they are known to have.

Methods: The microscope was brought over to the table and the plastic cover was removed. It was then plugged in and turned on by clicking the on/off switch on the side of the microscope. A prepared sample was collected

These fungi contain ascus with is a tiny sac with pores that formed during its life cycle. Figures 6 and 7 reflect the mushroom-like porous caps with septate. Ascomycetes producing microscopic spores inside elongated sacs, 8 spores each, where fluid increase and eventually burst. Figure 8 is the body of the Ascomycete and figure 7 includes the spores of the Ascomycete.

Basidomycota are the spore producing body of fungus called Basidiocarps and composed of densely packed hyphae. They are best described as mushrooms. Basidiomycota is expressed in figure 2 and 3, easily recognized by the shape and spores coming from each point of the shape. They sexually reproduce by nuclear fusions within Basidia to make a diploid cell, which undergoes meiosis to form Basidiospores. This is reflected in figure 2 with those points I referred to before. Zygomycota, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota all perform sexual and asexual reproduction just in different ways. Their structure is the biggest part of that, Zygomycota produces balloon like spores at the end of hyphae, Ascomycota form sacs of psores at the end of conidia and Basidiomycota form densely packed hyphae. After all this examination we found that our hypothesis was correct, the sexual structures were different. Each and every fungus ends the same but takes a different route in sexually

The purpose of this experiment was to view an image under oil immersion. Before the oil immersion was prepared, the slide was viewed initially under scanning and put into focus. Then slowly went through each magnification level, using the fine focusing knobs each time to clarify the image. Before getting to the final oil immersion magnification, one droplet of oil was put on the slide and then switched to the oil immersion lens (magnification 1000x). Refocusing and clarifying with fine focusing knobs, if needed. This image was seen as a cross of red, blue and yellow threads, the overlapping threads created a purple color. The oil immersion also made the objective more detailed and the individual fibers of the thread were visible string under this