727 articles
Annie Lorrain Smith
Annie Lorrain Smith (1854–1937), British mycologist and lichenologist at the British Museum (Natural History); author of the Monograph of the British Lichens and the 1921 textbook Lichens, the standard English lichenology work for 50 years.
Antrodia
Antrodia, a brown-rot polypore fungus genus in Polyporales (Fomitopsidaceae), introduced by Karsten 1879, type A. serpens; polyphyletic in broad sense, reduced to a small sensu stricto clade; includes the medicinal Taiwanese A. camphorata (Taiwanofungus camphoratus).
Arbuscular mycorrhiza
Arbuscular mycorrhiza is an ancient symbiosis, over 500 million years old, between most land plants' roots and soil fungi that supply phosphate and water in exchange for plant carbon.
Armillaria
Armillaria (honey mushrooms, honey fungus) is a genus of basidiomycete root-rot fungi with over 40 described species, type species A. mellea, spreading via rhizomorphs, infecting over 500 woody hosts, and including the largest known terrestrial organism.
Ascomycota
Ascomycota, the sac fungi or ascomycetes, is the largest fungal phylum, defined by sexual spores formed inside an ascus. Three subphyla: Taphrinomycotina, Saccharomycotina, Pezizomycotina; sister group Basidiomycota; Devonian fossil record.
Ascospore
Ascospores are the sexual spores of Ascomycota fungi, formed after meiosis inside asci, typically four or eight per ascus, with stress-resistant walls and forcible discharge exceeding 30 m/s.
Aspergillus
Aspergillus: genus of molds defined by foot-cell conidiophores; 453 accepted species in six subgenera and 27 sections; includes pathogen A. fumigatus, food fermenter A. oryzae, and enzyme producer A. niger.
Aspergillus and Penicillium
Aspergillus and Penicillium are two sister genera of mold fungi in the family Aspergillaceae, together making up more than 90% of that family's described species.
Aspergillus flavus
Aspergillus flavus, a widespread mold and second-leading cause of invasive aspergillosis, produces aflatoxins including aflatoxin B1, among the strongest natural carcinogens, contaminating maize, nuts, and cereals; non-aflatoxigenic strains are used as biocontrol.
Aspergillus fumigatus
Aspergillus fumigatus, a ubiquitous thermotolerant saprophytic mold and leading cause of aspergillosis; WHO critical-priority pathogen; azole resistance via cyp51A mutations and agricultural fungicide selection.
Aspergillus nidulans
Aspergillus nidulans (teleomorph Emericella nidulans) is a haploid homothallic filamentous fungus, the genetic model of the genus Aspergillus, established by Pontecorvo in 1953, with a sexual cycle, parasexuality, and a 2005 sequenced genome.
Aspergillus niger
Aspergillus niger (black mold, section Nigri) is the industrial fungus behind most citric acid and many food enzymes, GRAS in selected strains, with an 8-chromosome 33.9 Mb genome, but some isolates make ochratoxin A and fumonisin B2.
Aspergillus ochraceus
Aspergillus ochraceus, an Aspergillus subgen. Circumdati mold (K. Wilhelm 1877), source of the first ochratoxin A isolation in 1965; yellow-spored, ~37 Mb genome, otaA-D OTA gene cluster, also a lignin-degrading enzyme producer. Not to be confused with A. westerdijkiae.
Aspergillus oryzae
Aspergillus oryzae, the koji mold (麹菌), is a domesticated filamentous fungus used in sake, soy sauce, and miso fermentation; it is a non-aflatoxin-producing close relative of Aspergillus flavus and a major industrial enzyme producer.
Aspergillus parasiticus
Aspergillus parasiticus (Speare, 1912) is an aflatoxin-producing Aspergillus fungus in section Flavi that makes both B and G aflatoxins but never cyclopiazonic acid, contaminating crops such as peanuts, maize, and cottonseed.
Aspergillus wentii
Aspergillus wentii (Wehmer, 1896) is a mold in Aspergillus subgenus/section Cremei, used for industrial enzymes, koji and soy-sauce fermentation, citric and L-malic acid production, and studied for 97 secondary metabolites.
Aspergillus, section Flavi
Aspergillus, section Flavi, is a group of closely related molds, most famous for producing aflatoxins, group 1 carcinogens, and for including the main aflatoxin producer, Aspergillus flavus, alongside the domesticated Aspergillus oryzae.
Astraeus (fungus)
Astraeus, the false earthstars, is a genus of gasteroid Boletales fungi (Diplocystidiaceae) whose hygroscopic rays open and close with humidity; type species A. hygrometricus, distinct from Geastrum, ectomycorrhizal, edible, uncultivatable.
Astraeus hygrometricus
Astraeus hygrometricus, the barometer or hygroscopic earthstar (basionym Geastrum hygrometricum), is a Boletales fungus whose hygroscopic rays open in rain and close in drought; molecular work shows it is a complex of cryptic species.
Aureobasidium
Aureobasidium: genus of melanized, dimorphic yeast-like ascomycete fungi (black yeasts, Saccotheciaceae, Dothideales), type species A. pullulans; polyextremotolerant, pullulan-producing, used in biotechnology and biocontrol, occasionally opportunistic pathogens.
Auricularia
Auricularia (wood ear, jelly ear, black fungus) is a genus of gelatinous wood-decaying edible fungi in Auriculariaceae; 37 species are recognized, including cultivated A. heimuer and A. polytricha, valued for polysaccharides, fiber, and medicinal use.
Auricularia auricula-judae
Auricularia auricula-judae (jelly ear, wood ear, Jew's ear) is a saprobic European jelly fungus on hardwood, named for Judas' ear; molecular studies split it into a species complex including A. heimuer and A. americana.
Auriculariales
Auriculariales is an order of wood-inhabiting jelly fungi in Basidiomycota, class Agaricomycetes, synonym Eutremellales, with variable septate basidia; includes Auriculariaceae and the cultivated wood ear genus Auricularia.
Austrocortinarius australiensis
Austrocortinarius australiensis, the skirt webcap (formerly Cortinarius australiensis, basionym Rozites australiensis), is a large ectomycorrhizal Australian and New Zealand mushroom with a cap to 300 mm, membranous annulus, and rusty-brown spore print.
Baker's yeast
Baker's yeast is commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae used to leaven bread by fermenting dough sugars into CO2 and ethanol. Sold as fresh compressed, active dry, instant dry, and cream yeast; industrial production uses the 1919 fed-batch molasses Z-process.
Basidiomycete lichenicolous fungi
Basidiomycete lichenicolous fungi are non-lichenized basidiomycetes that live on or inside lichen thalli as parasites, parasymbionts, or saprotrophs, including tremelloid Tremella parasites, Athelia-type corticioids, and the plurivorous Marchandiomyces.
Basidiomycota
Basidiomycota, the basidiomycete fungi, is the second largest fungal phylum, defined by the basidium producing four external basidiospores; it includes mushrooms, rusts, smuts, and yeasts, with over 52,000 described species.
Basidium
Basidium: the club-shaped spore-bearing cell of Basidiomycota fungi (mushrooms, puffballs, rusts), producing usually four exogenous basidiospores on sterigmata after meiosis; aseptate holobasidia or septate phragmobasidia, contrasting with the eight-spored ascus of ascomycetes.
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is a chytrid fungus causing chytridiomycosis, the deadliest wildlife pathogen known; traced to Korea, it has driven over 500 amphibian species toward decline, with at least 90 extinctions.
Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans
Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), the salamander-eating chytrid fungus, discovered in the Netherlands in 2013; kills fire salamanders within weeks, caused a 96% Dutch population crash, originated in Asia, and threatens North American salamanders.