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The name Zygomycota refers to the zygosporangia characteristically formed by the members of this clade, in which resistant spherical spores are formed during sexual reproduction. Zygos is Greek for "joining" or "a yoke ", referring to the fusion of two hyphal strands which produces these spores, and -mycota is a suffix referring to a division ...
A zygospore is a diploid reproductive stage in the life cycle of many fungi and protists.Zygospores are created by the nuclear fusion of haploid cells. In fungi, zygospores are formed in zygosporangia after the fusion of specialized budding structures, from mycelia of the same (in homothallic fungi) or different mating types (in heterothallic fungi), and may be chlamydospores. [1]
Once the cell membranes, cytoplasm, and pronuclei fuse, the resulting single cell is diploid, containing two copies of the genome. This diploid cell, called a zygote or zygospore can then enter meiosis (a process of chromosome duplication, recombination, and division, to produce four new haploid cells), or continue to divide by mitosis.
Zygospores are formed in certain fungi (zygomycota, for example Rhizopus) and some algae (for example Chlamydomonas). The zygospore forms through the isogamic fusion of two cells (motile single cells in Chlamydomonas) or sexual conjugation between two hyphae (in zygomycota). Plasmogamy is followed by karyogamy, therefore zygospores are diploid ...
A second pair of septa forms two adjacent cells, one on each side. These adjacent cells, called suspensors provide structural support. The central cell, called the zygosporangium, is destined to become a spore. The zygosporangium is a unique structure to the Zygomycota and is easily recognizable in microscopy due to its characteristic dark ...
The gametangia grow toward each other, then fuse, forming a diploid zygote at the point of fusion. The zygote develops a resistant cell wall, forming a single-celled zygospore, the characteristic that gives its name to this group of fungi. Meiosis occurs within the zygospore (see article Phycomyces). Upon germination, a new haploid mycelium or ...
It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other groups form sporangia at some point in their life cycle. Sporangia can produce spores by mitosis, but in land plants and many fungi, sporangia produce genetically distinct haploid spores by meiosis.
It is thought that ordinarily two surviving nuclei, one from each parent, fuse to form a diploid cell that then undergoes meiosis to form haploid meiotic products. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] These products then reproduce by mitotic divisions leading to the formation of a sporangium structure (germosporangium) that develops out from the zygospore.