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Mycology
 
 
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Mycology (from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 µ????, meaning "fungus") is the branch of biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
 concerned with the study of fungi
Fungus

A fungus is a Eukaryote organism that is a member of the Kingdom Fungi . The fungi are a monophyletic group, also called the Eumycota , that is phylogeny distinct from the morphologically similar slime molds and water molds ....
, including their genetic
Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
 and biochemical
Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry processes in living organisms. It deals with the structure and function of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules....
 properties, their taxonomy
Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word comes from the Greek language ', taxis and ', nomos .Taxonomies, or taxonomic schemes, are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa , or kinds of things that are arranged frequently in a hierarchical structure....
, and their use to humans
Ethnomycology

Ethnomycology is the study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi , and can be considered a subfield of ethnobotany or ethnobiology....
  as a source for tinder
Tinder

Tinder is easily combustible material used to ignite fires by rudimentary methods. A small fire consisting of tinder is then used to ignite kindling....
, medicinals
Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
 (e.g., penicillin
Penicillin

Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They are Beta-lactam antibiotics used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by susceptible, usually Gram-positive, organisms....
), food (e.g., beer
Beer

Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and Fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal?the most common of which is malted barley, although wheat, maize , and rice are widely used....
, wine
Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage often made of fermentation grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients....
, cheese
Cheese

Cheese is a food consisting of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cattle, Water Buffalo, goats, or sheep's milk. It is produced by Coagulation of the milk protein casein....
, edible mushrooms
Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to those fungi that have a stem , a cap , and gills on the unde...
), entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poison
Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are Chemical substance that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ing or infection
Infection

An infection is the detrimental colonization of a host organism by a foreign species. In an infection, the infecting organism seeks to utilize the host resources to multiply ....
. From mycology arose the field of phytopathology
Phytopathology

For the journal, see Plant Pathology .Plant pathology is the scientific study of plant diseases caused by pathogens and environmental conditions ....
, the study of plant diseases, and the two disciplines remain closely related because the vast majority of plant pathogens are fungi.






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Mycology (from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 µ????, meaning "fungus") is the branch of biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
 concerned with the study of fungi
Fungus

A fungus is a Eukaryote organism that is a member of the Kingdom Fungi . The fungi are a monophyletic group, also called the Eumycota , that is phylogeny distinct from the morphologically similar slime molds and water molds ....
, including their genetic
Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
 and biochemical
Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry processes in living organisms. It deals with the structure and function of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules....
 properties, their taxonomy
Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word comes from the Greek language ', taxis and ', nomos .Taxonomies, or taxonomic schemes, are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa , or kinds of things that are arranged frequently in a hierarchical structure....
, and their use to humans
Ethnomycology

Ethnomycology is the study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi , and can be considered a subfield of ethnobotany or ethnobiology....
  as a source for tinder
Tinder

Tinder is easily combustible material used to ignite fires by rudimentary methods. A small fire consisting of tinder is then used to ignite kindling....
, medicinals
Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
 (e.g., penicillin
Penicillin

Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They are Beta-lactam antibiotics used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by susceptible, usually Gram-positive, organisms....
), food (e.g., beer
Beer

Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and Fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal?the most common of which is malted barley, although wheat, maize , and rice are widely used....
, wine
Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage often made of fermentation grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients....
, cheese
Cheese

Cheese is a food consisting of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cattle, Water Buffalo, goats, or sheep's milk. It is produced by Coagulation of the milk protein casein....
, edible mushrooms
Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to those fungi that have a stem , a cap , and gills on the unde...
), entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poison
Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are Chemical substance that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ing or infection
Infection

An infection is the detrimental colonization of a host organism by a foreign species. In an infection, the infecting organism seeks to utilize the host resources to multiply ....
. From mycology arose the field of phytopathology
Phytopathology

For the journal, see Plant Pathology .Plant pathology is the scientific study of plant diseases caused by pathogens and environmental conditions ....
, the study of plant diseases, and the two disciplines remain closely related because the vast majority of plant pathogens are fungi. A biologist who studies mycology is called a mycologist.

Historically, mycology was a branch of botany
Botany

Botany, plant science, phytology, or plant biology is a branch of biology and is the Scientific method of plant life and development....
 (fungi are evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
arily more closely related to animals than to plants but this was not recognized until a few decades ago). Pioneer mycologists included Elias Magnus Fries
Elias Magnus Fries

Elias Magnus Fries was a Sweden mycologist and botanist born at Femsj? in Sm?land....
, Christian Hendrik Persoon
Christian Hendrik Persoon

Christiaan Hendrik Persoon was a mycologist who made additions to Carolus Linnaeus' mushroom taxonomy....
, Anton de Bary
Anton de Bary

Heinrich Anton de Bary was a Germany surgery, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist .He is considered a founding father of plant pathology as well as the founder of modern mycology....
 and Lewis David von Schweinitz
Lewis David von Schweinitz

Lewis David de Schweinitz was an United States botanist and mycologist. He is considered by some the "Father of North American Mycology", but also made significant contributions to botany....
.

Today, the most comprehensively studied and understood fungi are the yeasts and eukaryotic
Eukaryote

Animals, plants, fungus, and protists are eukaryotes , organisms whose Cell are organized into complex structures enclosed within Cell membrane....
 model organisms Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of budding yeast. It is perhaps the most useful yeast owing to its use since ancient times in baking and brewing....
 and Schizosaccharomyces pombe
Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Schizosaccharomyces pombe, also called "fission yeast", is a species of yeast. It is used as a model organism in molecular biology and cell biology....
.

Many fungi produce toxin
Toxin

A toxin is a poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms. For a toxic substance not produced by living organisms, "toxicant" is the more appropriate term, and "toxics" is an acceptable plural....
s, antibiotics, and other secondary metabolites
Secondary metabolism

Secondary metabolism is a term for pathways and small molecule products of metabolism that are not absolutely required for the survival of the organism....
. For example, the cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan distribution

In biogeography, a biological category of living things is said to have cosmopolitan distribution if this category can be found almost anywhere around the world....
 (worldwide) genus Fusarium
Fusarium

Fusarium is a large genus of Hypha fungi widely distributed in soil and in association with plants. Most species are harmless saprobes and are relatively abundant members of the soil microbial community....
 and their toxins associated with fatal outbreaks of alimentary toxic aleukia in humans were extensively studied by Abraham Joffe. Fungi are fundamental for life on earth in their roles as symbionts
Symbiosis

The term symbiosis commonly describes close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. The term was first used in 1879 by the Germany mycology Heinrich Anton de Bary, who defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms"....
, e.g. in the form of mycorrhizae, insect
Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
 symbionts and lichens as well as their potency in breaking down complex organic
Organic compound

An organic compound is any member of a large class of chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of compounds such as carbonates, simple oxides of carbon and cyanides, as well as the allotropes of carbon, are considered Inorganic compound....
 biomolecules such as lignin, the more durable component of wood
Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
, as well as xenobiotics, a critical step in the global carbon cycle
Carbon cycle

The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and Earth's atmosphere of the Earth....
.

Fungi and other organisms traditionally recognized as fungi, such as oomycetes and myxomycetes (slime molds), often are economically and socially important as some cause diseases of animals (such as histoplasmosis
Histoplasmosis

Histoplasmosis, also known as Darling's disease,is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Symptoms of this infection vary greatly, but the disease primarily affects the lungs....
) as well as plants (such as Dutch elm disease
Dutch elm disease

Dutch elm disease is a fungus disease of elm trees which is spread by the elm bark beetle. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, it has been accidentally introduced into Americas and Europe, where it has devastated native populations of elms which had not had the opportunity to evolve resistance to the disease....
 and Rice blast
Magnaporthe grisea

Magnaporthe grisea, also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, and johnson spot, is a plant-pathogenic fungus that causes an important disease affecting rice....
).

Field meetings to find interesting species of fungi are known as 'foray
Foray

A foray was a traditional method of law enforcement in Poland. In view of the weakness of the executive in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was used by members of the szlachta to defend their rights....
s', after the first such meeting organized by the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in 1868 and entitled "a foray among the fungi."

Some fungi can cause disease in humans or other organism
Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
s. The study of pathogenic fungi
Pathogenic fungi

Pathogenic fungi are fungi that cause disease in humans or other organisms. The study of pathogenic fungi is referred to as medical mycology. Although fungi are eukaryotic organisms many pathogenic fungi are also microorganisms....
 is referred to as medical mycology
Pathogenic fungi

Pathogenic fungi are fungi that cause disease in humans or other organisms. The study of pathogenic fungi is referred to as medical mycology. Although fungi are eukaryotic organisms many pathogenic fungi are also microorganisms....
.

History


Ancient and antiquity


Humans probably started collecting mushrooms as food already in prehistoric times. Mushrooms were first written about in the works of Euripides
Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
 (480-406 B.C.). The Greek philosopher Theophrastos of Eressos (371-288 B.C.) was perhaps the first to try to systematically classify plants; mushrooms were considered to be plants that were missing certain organs. It was later Pliny the elder
Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
 (23–79 B.C.), who wrote about truffles in his encyclopedia Naturalis historia.

Middle Ages

The middle ages saw little advancement in the body of knowledge about fungi. Rather, the invention of the printing press allows some authors to disseminate superstitions and misconceptions about the fungi that had been perpetuated by the classical authors.

16th to 18th century

The start of the modern age of mycology begins with Pier Antonio Micheli
Pier Antonio Micheli

Pier Antonio Micheli was a noted Italy botanist, professor of botany in Pisa, curator of the Orto Botanico di Firenze, author of Nova plantarum genera iuxta Tournefortii methodum disposita....
's 1737 publication of Nova plantarum genera. Published in Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
, this seminal work laid the foundations for the systematic classification of grasses, mosses, and fungi.

19th century


20th century


See also

  • Mycotoxicology
    Mycotoxicology

    Mycotoxicology is the branch of mycology that focuses on analyzing and studying the toxins produced by fungus, known as Mycotoxins. As many microorganisms, fungus produce toxins as a response of biological stress in the environment, like lower nutrients or competitions for those available, conditions that trigger the secondary metabolism....
  • List of mycologists
    List of mycologists

    This is a list of mycologists, or scientists with a specialisation in mycology, with their Author citation .A*Erik Acharius ? Ach.*Michel Adanson ? Adans....
  • List of mycology journals
  • Pathogenic fungi
    Pathogenic fungi

    Pathogenic fungi are fungi that cause disease in humans or other organisms. The study of pathogenic fungi is referred to as medical mycology. Although fungi are eukaryotic organisms many pathogenic fungi are also microorganisms....
  • Fungal Biochemical Tests
    Fungal Biochemical Tests

    The following are some systems currently being used for the identification of yeasts.*Carbohydrate fermentation studies:**This tests whether a certain yeast ferments different carbohydrates....


Cited texts


External links

  • Professional organizations
    • BMS
      British Mycological Society

      The British Mycological Society is a learned society established in 1896 to promote the study of mushrooms and Fungus....
      : (United Kingdom)
    • (Hong Kong, China)
    • (Italia)
    • MSA
      Mycological Society of America

      The Mycological Society of America is a learned society that serves as the professional organization of mycologists in the United States and Canadian....
      : (North America)
  • Amateur organizations
    • North American Mycological Association
      North American Mycological Association

      The North American Mycological Association , is a non-profit organization of amateurs and professionals who are interested in fungi, including mushrooms, morels, truffles, molds, and related organisms....
  • Miscellaneous links
    • University of South Carolina
    • (Italy)
    • in the Tree of Life web project
    • at University of Edinburgh, UK.
    • Cornell University, Mann Library
    • Learn to identify mushrooms using this in depth, well-structured game.