GENERAL MICROBIOLOGY - T.P. Pyrog - 2004

8. FUNGI

8.2. DEVELOPMENT OF MYCOLOGY, POSITION OF FUNGI AMONG LIVING ORGANISMS

Mycology is the science of Fungi, a branch of botany that studies the Morphology, physiology, biochemistry, ecology, geography, and phylogeny of fungi, as well as their role in nature and human life.

Like other sciences, mycology has passed through a complex and lengthy path of formation and development. Four periods of mycological development are generally distinguished.

The first period extends until the mid-19th century. This is the so-called morphological descriptive stage, characterized by the first attempts at scientific Classification of fungi. In 1578, the first atlas of fungi (comprising 200 species) was published. In 1801, the two-volume "Observation on Fungi" (authored by the Dutch mycologist C.H. Persoon) was published, followed between 1821 and 1832 by the major scientific work of the Swedish botanist E.M. Fries, "Systema Mycologicum".

Class="center">Table 8.1.

Characteristics of plants, animals, and fungi

The second period lasts until the end of the 19th century. The main focus of this period was The Study of The Development of fungal organisms, particularly their developmental cycles, as well as research into phytopathogenic fungi.

The third period spans from the late 19th century to the 1940s. It was marked by the development of cytological Methods in studying fungi and the widespread Introduction of experimental methods in fungal genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and ecology. Key areas included the cytological study of ontogeny, investigation of nuclear development phases, sexual processes, and more.

The fourth period begins in the 1940s. The primary focus of this period is the PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL study of fungi at various levels of investigation—molecular, cellular and subcellular, organismal, associative, and biocenological—along with the development of fungal biotechnology.

Position of fungi among living organisms. Today, THE CONCEPT OF five kingdoms of living organisms, proposed in 1969 by R. Whittaker, is universally recognized among mycologists. According to R. Whittaker's views, two primitive kingdoms—prokaryotic organisms (Procaryota), characterized by the absence of a nuclear membrane as their primary distinguishing feature, and Protozoans (Protista), which are unicellular organisms possessing a Nucleus with a nuclear membrane and characterized by auto- and heterotrophic Types of nutrition—serve as the starting forms for the evolution and emergence of three distinct lineages of Multicellular Organisms: plants (Plantae), animals (Animalia), and fungi (Fungi). Consequently, according to this concept, fungi hold the status of a separate kingdom in the organic world. In taxonomies published in the 1990s (D.L. Hawksworth, 1995; L. Margulis and K.V. Schwartz, 1997; T. Cavalier-Smith, 1998), fungi are likewise classified as a separate kingdom. Mycologists consider the recognition of the independence of fungi from the PLANT AND ANIMAL kingdoms to be one of The most significant achievements of general biology in the mid- to late 20th century.