Fungi, also known as eumycotas, are organisms belonging to the Fungi Kingdom, grouping all heterotrophic, unicellular and multicellular eukaryotes, and their nutrition is carried out by absorption through the cell wall.
For a long time, fungi were classified with plants (Kingdom Plantea), but upon exhaustive study it was observed that they possessed characteristics so different from any other organism that they are now classified into a separate kingdom.
Unlike vegetables, they never have chlorophyll and therefore do not photosynthesize, so their nutrition is heterotrophic, not only with respect to carbon and nitrogen, but also to other substances. Fungi are saprophagous heterotrophs; that is, they acquire their food by decomposition and adsorption of organic matter through the cell membrane and wall.
Unlike animals, their cells are usually not naked, except in the lower groups, but covered by a protective membrane that is usually chitin (N-acetylglucosamine polymer), and they group together to form filamentous thalli called hyphae, whose meeting it in turn constitutes a mycelium, or vegetative body, which penetrates the substrate.
Its reproduction; however, it is of a vegetable type. It can be asexual, by spores or by fragmentation; and sexual, by fusion of gametes, gametogangia or both. Their classification is based mainly on the characteristics of the sexual spores and the fruiting bodies. 100,000 species are known and include five phyla: Chytridiomucota, zygomycota, basidiomycota,, ascomuycota, deuteromycota .
Most fungi live on land, and have a saprophytic, parasitic, or symbiotic way of life. Its importance is great from the ecological point of view, since they act by decomposing the wood (saprophytes), attacking plants (parasites) or forming associations with certain plants and even animals such as termites (symbiotics), to whom they provide certain substances that they are incapable of producing them.
The science that studies fungi is called mycology. Human beings use mushrooms as food (truffles, mushrooms, etc.), yeasts are used in the manufacture of bread and beer, other mushrooms in the production of some cheeses, for the synthesis of antibiotics and hormones used in medicine, as well as enzymes used in certain industrial processes.
However, some fungi are parasites, and can cause diseases such as mycosis in people; infection of the skin, hair, or nails, or other infections such as vaginal, urinary, respiratory, etc.
