I. SYNONYMS: zygomycetes, conjugating fungi, trichomycetes

II. NUMBER: >200 species?

III. PHYLUM CHARACTERISTICS:

• A. ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION:
  • Sporangiospores (text with tooltip) Sporangiophores are fertile appendages that do not look leaf-like. The sporangiophores of the horsetails may be compound structures. ( aplanospores (text with tooltip) Non-motile resting spore. ) or modified sporangia (text with tooltip) Sporangia are spore-bearing structures. (sac-like merosporangia) functioning as conidia. Conidia (text with tooltip) Asexual reproductive spores formed on a conidiophore. usually with few spores, especially in Kickxellomycotina.

• B. SEXUAL REPRODUCTION:
  • Two morphologically similar gametangia fuse to produce a warty, thick zygospore. Meiosis within zygospore (text with tooltip) Sexual spores produced by fusion of gametangia. .

• C. VEGETATIVE HYPHAE:
  • Haplophase (text with tooltip) Portion of life cycle during which the organism is haploid. ; no dikaryophase (text with tooltip) Portion of life cycle during which cells are dikaryotic. except in fused gametangia; aseptate (text with tooltip) Lacking septa (partitions within the hyphae). or septate. Septa of some with pores that are plugged.

• D. CELL WALLS: Chitin and chitosan.

• E. ECOLOGY: Free-living to parasitic. Free-living forms mainly terrestrial saprobes. Parasites mainly of fungi and arthropods, but also of amoebae.