KEY POINTS

1. Aiding the survival of species from other kingdoms through the supply of nutrients, fungi play a major role as decomposers and recyclers in the wide variety of habitats in which they exist.
2. Fungi provide a vital role in releasing scarce, yet biologically-essential elements, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, from decaying matter.
3. Their mode of nutrition, which involves digestion before ingestion, allows fungi to degrade many large and insoluble molecules that would otherwise remain trapped in a habitat.

KEY TERMS

• Decomposer: any organism that feeds off decomposing organic material, especially bacterium or fungi
• Exoenzyme: any enzyme, generated by a cell, that functions outside of that cell
• Saprobe: an organism that lives off of dead or decaying organic material

KEY POINTS

1. The first recognizable chytrids appeared more than 500 million years ago during the late pre-Cambrian period.
2. Like protists, chytrids usually live in aquatic environments, but some species live on land.
3. Some chytrids are saprobes while others are parasites that may be harmful to amphibians and other animals.
4. Chytrids reproduce both sexually and asexually, which leads to the production of zoospores.
5. Chytrids have chitin in their cell walls; one unique group also has cellulose along with chitin.
6. Chytrids are mostly unicellular, but multicellular organisms do exist.
7. Most zygomycota are saprobes, while a few species are parasites.
8. Zygomycota usually reproduce asexually by producing sporangiospores.
9. Zygomycota reproduce sexually when environmental conditions become unfavorable.
10. To reproduce sexually, two opposing mating strains must fuse or conjugate, thereby, sharing genetic content and creating zygospores.
11. The resulting diploid zygospores remain dormant and protected by thick coats until environmental conditions have improved.
12. When conditions become favorable, zygospores undergo meiosis to produce haploid spores, which will eventually grow into a new organism.
13. Ascomycota fungi are the yeasts used in baking, brewing, and wine fermentation, plus delicacies such as truffles and morels.
14. Ascomycetes are filamentous and produce hyphae divided by perforated septa.
15. Ascomycetes frequently reproduce asexually which leads to the production of conidiophores that release haploid conidiospores.
16. Two types of mating strains, a “male” strain which produces an antheridium and a “female” strain which develops an ascogonium, are required for sexual reproduction.
17. The antheridium and the ascogonium combine in plasmogamy at the time of fertilization, followed by nuclei fusion in the asci.
18. In the ascocarp, a fruiting body, thousands of asci undergo meiosis to generate haploid ascospores ready to be released to the world.
19. The majority of edible fungi belong to the Phylum Basidiomycota.
20. The basidiomycota includes shelf fungus, toadstools, and smuts and rusts.
21. Unlike most fungi, basidiomycota reproduce sexually as opposed to asexually.
22. Two different mating strains are required for the fusion of genetic material in the basidium which is followed by meiosis producing haploid basidiospores.
23. Mycelia of different mating strains combine to produce a secondary mycelium that contains haploid basidiospores in what is called the dikaryotic stage, where the fungi remains until a basidiocarp (mushroom) is generated with the developing basidia on the gills under its cap.

KEY TERMS

• Chytridiomycete: an organism of the phylum Chytridiomycota
• Zoospore: an asexual spore of some algae and fungi
• Flagellum: a flagellum is a lash-like appendage that protrudes from the cell body of certain prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
• coenocytic: a multinucleate cell that can result from multiple nuclear divisions without their accompanying cytokinesis
• plasmogamy: stage of sexual reproduction joining the cytoplasm of two parent mycelia without the fusion of nuclei
• Ascomycota: a taxonomic division within the kingdom Fungi; those fungi that produce spores in a microscopic sporangium called an ascus
• Ascus: a sac-shaped cell present in ascomycete fungi; it is a reproductive cell in which meiosis and an additional cell division produce eight spores
• Ascospore: a sexually-produced spore from the ascus of an Ascomycetes fungus
• Conidia: asexual, non-motile spores of a fungus, named after the Greek word for dust, conia; also known as conidiospores and mitospores
• Antheridia: a haploid structure or organ producing and containing male gametes (called antherozoids or sperm) present in lower plants like mosses and ferns, primitive vascular psilotophytes, and fungi
• Ascogonium: a haploid structure or organ producing and containing female gametes in certain Ascomycota fungi
• Ascocarp: the sporocarp of an ascomycete, typically bowl-shaped
• Ascomycete: any fungus of the phylum Ascomycota, characterized by the production of a sac, or ascus, which contains non-motile spores
• Basidiocarp: a fruiting body that protrudes from the ground, known as a mushroom, which has a developing basidia on the gills under its cap
• Basidiomycete: a fungus of the phylum Basidiomycota, which produces sexual spores on a basidium
• Basidiomycota: a taxonomic division within the kingdom Fungi: 30,000 species of fungi that produce spores from a basidium
• Basidium: a small structure, shaped like a club, found in the Basidiomycota phylum of fungi, that bears four spores at the tips of small projections
• Basidiospore: a sexually-reproductive spore produced by fungi of the phylum Basidiomycota

The Content for the master seminar is attached, Prepare the writeup and presentation as per the headings and subheadings 

BOOTP and DHCP

History of nanoscience,  definition  of  nanometer, nanoscience  and

nanotechnology;  popular and scientific prospective of nanotechnology

Classification of  nanomaterials,  density of  states  for  0-D, 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D  materials,  Quantum confinement

Band offsets, quantum transport in nanoclusters/ quantum dots