Fungus-like Protists

• Slime Mold
o Found on moist, decaying matter
o Motile: move by pseudopodia
o Stationary reproductive stage that produce fungus-like spores
• Water Mold
o Filamentous branches of cells
o Found in water or soil
o Some parasitic

Phylum Myxomycota
• Plasmodial slime mold
• Mass of cytoplasm called a plasmodium
• Can vary in size (several meters)
• Multinucleated: diploid nucleus
• No cell wall to separate nucleus
• Moves by cytoplasmic streaming
• Consumes dead organic material by phagocytosis
• Poor living environments cause it to reproduce
o Forms stalks with fruiting body containing haploid spores that are formed as the
nucleus undergoes meiosis
o Spores are resistant to harsh environments
o Spores crack open to reveal haploid nucleuses which fuse with other haploid
nuclei to form a diploid nucleus
o Nucleus undergoes mitosis to form many nuclei & cells that results in a
multinucleated plasmodium

Phylum Dictyostecida
• Cellular slime mold
• Move with pseudopodia
• Exists as haploid cells
• Creep along the ground or water, ingesting small organisms
• Exist as independent cells
• When conditions are harsh they reproduce
o Secrete chemicals that attract other cellular slime molds
o Pseudoplasmodium: thousands of them meeting together
o Colony of cells move together as one yet each cell remains independent
o Colony forms floating bodies that contains spores which open under good
conditions
o Each haploid spore becomes an individual cell
Phylum Oomycota
• Water mold
• Parasitic (infect fish)
• Asexual reproduction
o Produce spores with flagella
o Germinate into threadlike cells
o Becomes another water mold
• Sexual reproduction
o Develop eggs & sperm
o Fertilization tubes grow between molds
o Produces diploid zygote which grows into new filaments

Phylum Chytridiomycota
• Water mold
• “aquatic protists”
• Have gametes & zoospores with flagella
• Unicellular
• Parasitic
• Have some fungal characteristics
o Same method of eating
o Same cell walls
o Filaments
o Similar enzymes
• Considered the evolutionary link between fungus & protists