Fungi - module #4

(the mushroom in the pictures is Jase) hehe

In this module we learned about mushrooms, slime molds, yeast we use for baking, and others kinds of fungi we use to flavor cheese, make medicine and others that cause diseases for people and plants. All of these things come from kingdom Fungi

Most Fungi are multicellular, saprophytic or parasitic decomposing heterotrophs! this all means that most of them are made up of more than one cell and live on a dead organism or alive one, and decomposing it making their own food. when a fungus makes it's own food it digests the food out side of their body. this is called extracellular digestion. this allows other plants to absorb some of the nutrients that have been broken down like trees. when a tree drops it's leaves mushrooms will appear around the bottom and start decomposing the leaves, some of the nutrients will be absorbed by the fungus and some by the tree. so the tree can actually absorb broken down chemicals from it own leaves and be reused! if the fungus didn't do this the tree would be choked out by it's own leaves in just a few seasons! fungi brake down things by using mycelium - which is a mat of strands underneath the stalk (the part we eat) we see on

eat) we see on the top. the mycelium is allot bigger than the stalk and is made up of septate or nonseptiate hypha, which are the individual strands of the mycelium. hypha is a filament of fungal calls. septate hypha have cells walls inside with holes in-between each one and they exchange cytoplasm! they are the only kind of organisms that share cytoplasm! nonseptate hpha have no cell walls inside so it's like one big cell. there is also Rhiziod hypha, a hypha that is imbed in the material on which the fungus grows. Aerial hypha is another kind, it sticks up in the air and either absorbs oxygen, produces spores, or asexually reproduces to form new filament. if it produces spores it is called a sporophore if it reproduces asexually to make filaments it is called a stolon. both of these are a way to make more fungus. the last one is a Haustorium hypha it is a parasitic fungus that enters the host's cells and absorbs nutrition directly from the cytoplasm, this is of course parasitic.

Fungus are classaified into phylums by the what there fruiting bodies (the things above the ground) look like and how they reproduce. here are the phyla:

Basidiomycota - club like spores called basidia

Ascomycota - sac like spores called asci

Zygomcyota - spores were hypha fuse (when 2 hypha run into each other and grow together)

Chytridiomycota - spores with flagella

Deuteromycota - with no known methods of sexual reproduction

Myxomycota - fungi that look like protozoa for much of there lives

Mushrooms, puff balls, shelf fungi, rusts, and smuts come form Basidiomycota. the last 3 being parasitic. yeast is in phylum Ascomycota - yeast we learned is used for baking bread and making alcohol drinks. when the yeast is mixed into the bread dough it starts to feed on the sugars in the bead, this brakes it down into alcohol and carbon dioxide. the carbon dioxide makes the dough rise and the alcohol kills the yeast and then evaporates. the yeast is killed when the alcohol reaches 4 % . other yeast can stand up to 12% but when people want more than a 12% alcohol level in alcoholic drinks they have to do distillation. Distillation is when they boil the water the alcohol is in and since the alcohol boils of at a lower temp then water, they can collect the vapors and then create a solution with higher concentration levels. single celled fungi called chytrids are in Chytridiomycota, mold comes from phylum Zygomycota and penicillin and antibiotics come from Deuteromycota. last of all slime molds and things that look like protozoa for some of there life are placed in Myxomycota.

lastly we learned that lots and lots of mushrooms and poisonous- example: the destroying angle mushroom, it's white and when you eat it, it tastes like a normal tasty mushroom, the drawback is that in 16 hours you'll be dead!!! so only eat mushrooms from the store! :)

we have also developed a hypothesis, (i don't how educated it is but it's a guess)

that Lahonti, might have been poisoned by degrees by mushrooms! :D our only thought supporting our guess though is that there's allot of mushrooms in south america. yea thats it - but hey it's a scientific guess made by sortof scientific student scientists and there awesome Bio Domin!!

- Tameanea

Kingdom PROTISTA

This last week we did module #3! And its all about Kingdom Protista. There are two subkingdoms in Protista. (Note: subkingdom is not a phyla)

• Subkingdom Protozoa
  
• subkingdom Algae

And in side both of these subkingdoms there are 9 major phyla. For subkingdom Protozoa there is 4 major phyla:

• Mastigophora
  
• Sarcodina
  
• Ciliophora
  
• Sporozoa
  

There phyla are distinguished from one another based on their organisms' method of locomotion.
For subkingdom Algae there is 5 major phyla:

• Chlorophyta
• Chrysophyta
• Pyrrophyta
• Phaeophyta
  
• Rhodophyta

Organisms are separated into these phyla based on habitat, organization, and type of cell wall.

In one of our phyla in subkingdom Protozoa: Sarcodina- there is a cell called Amoeba proteus
These cells are so cool! They have a standard body shape, and they are enclosed in a flexibel plasma membrane that lets them change shape whenever they want. When they want to move, they form extentions out of their bodies called pseudopods
Pseudopod- A temporary, foot-like extension of a cell, used for locomotion or engulfing food
This cell is considered eukaryotic because it is so nicely organized inside.

Another cell in subkingdom Protozoa, phyla Mastigophora, is Euglena. These organisms can be found in marine waters, fresh water, and/or moist soil. Members of this genus can produce their own food, by photosynthesis. Though they are photosynthetic we dont consider them to be autotrophic... because in certain curcumstances they can ingest and decompose remains of dead organisms. Even though they can do this, sometimes they obsorb food from their surroundings! As you can see, they have many ways to get food, so we dont have to worry about them surviving! One of the ways it can decide which way he will get his food is with his eyespot
Eyespot- A light-sensitive region in certan protozoa
So they can see if there is light so they can use photosynthesis, or if its dark they can take from their surroundings or they can find dead remains.
Euglena's is a flagellate
Flagellate- A protozoan that propels itself with a flagellum
This cell is very complex, and we just barely touched the surface!

The experiment we did on Friday was EXPERIMENT 3.2
we look at prepared slides for an Amoeba, Paramecium, Euglena and Volvox cells! it was so cool! my favorite was the Volvox, on the slide it was bright pink

It seems like there is just not enough time to soak up everything there is to learn! These modules dont waist a second... there always telling us something totally fasinating! I really love science this year! Thanks to all who help--
Hannah

bacteria!

Last week for science we went to Rigby Lake and gathered four jars with lake water in each one. In each jar we placed a different type of food for the bacteria: eggs, rice, soil, and hay. After that we placed the jars into a cooler in brother Butikofer’s shop. We left them there for a week. this week we were learning about prokaryotic cells (cells that have no distinct membrane bounded organelles). Don't worry if you don't know what it means. Few do. We also learned abot pathogens,oranisims that cause disease, Saprophytes, organisims that feed on dead matter, parasites, organisims that feed on a living host, aerobic organisims, organisims that require oxygen, and anerobic organisims, ones that don't, how bacteria reproduce, exponential growth, logistic growth,plasmids, transfomation,transduction, endospores, gram positive and gram negitive bacteria, and so on and so forth and ect.

Now... To grow, bacteria must have the following things: moisture, moderate temperature, nutrition, darkness, and the proper amount of oxygen. We, the considerate people that we are, provided them with all of those things. The greatful bacteria began to thrive and grow in prosperity and peace. When we removed them in a week, they had multiplied to staggering numbers. We placed a drop of water out of each jar onto a glass slide. The bacteria we had chosen were greatful and decided to show off the best that they could. We were satisfied and impressed with the fruits of our labor. We saw coccus bacteria, bacillus, spirillum, diatoms, volvox, amoeba, and more. It was super exciting and fun. We can’t wait to do more Biology!

--Animalia

science this year!!!

this year my dad (brent), is teaching hannah, aliysa, me, eliza, and jace all science! we're really excited for biology and all the fun things that go with it, the microscope, all the experiments and well... mabey not so excited to cut open giant frogs, but of course having fun writing down all of our fun adventures here!

members in the science lab:

1. dad/brent as BioDomin = life master

2. Hannah (yet to be decided)

3. Aliysa as Animalia = animal kingdom 4.Vanessa as Tameanea = latin name for butterfly

5. Eliza (yet to be decided)

6. Jace as Fungi = fun guy

In this module we

learned about the 4 criteria of life, which is what a life form has to pass in order to be considered alive

. it must have DNA which is short for deoxyribonucleic acid!

. it must reproduce

. it must react to things around them

. and it must be able to convert energy to food

we also learned about once you know their alive how to know what they are or be able to use taxonomy: the science of classifying organisms. we learned to classifying them into things like herbivores, animals that eats only plants, carnivores that eat only things other than plants, and omnivores, animals that eat both plants and other organisms. Or into producers, organisms that produce there own food (mostly plants), consumers, organisms that eat producers or other consumers, and decomposers, organisms that break down dead organisms for food. autotrophs or heterotrophs if can or can't make their own food, or into the eukaryotic cells group or the prokaryotic cell group weather or not they have distinct membrane - bounded organelles or not.

Then there's the 5 kingdom classification system, thats what you use if you want more information or more details than the classifications above can give you. the 5 kingdoms are Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia. the 5 kingdom system has several different levels down from that depending on how much information you want. the first level is kingdom, second phyum, then class, next after that is order, family, genus, until last is species.

a fun and easy way to remember this is with this funny sentence we learned "King Philip Cried Out, 'For Goodness Sake!" :) now we'll never forget which order they go in!

we had a chance to classify using this method with the help of a biological key. that was a lot of fun finding there name and then trying to pronounce it!

last in this module we learned about another newer classifying method similar to the 5 kingdom system, it was called the 3 domain system in which there were the domains Archaea Bacteria and Eukarya. in this system you classified all the organisms with eukaryotic cells in the Eukarya domain and the prokaryotic celled organisms in two different domains. the ones that lived in extreme environments went in the Archaea domain and the ones that didn't live in extreme environments went in the Bacteria domain. this classifying system is mostly used by evolutionists.