Download Extra Cellular Digestion In Saprophytic Fungus

Extra Cellular Digestion In
Saprophytic Fungus
By Elizabeth Drury
• Fungi are not consumers unlike animals.
• They are either saprophytes (decomposers) or
pathogens.
• Therefore use saprophytic nutrition.
• This means they do not ingest food but use extra
cellular digestion.
Extracellular Digestion
• This means that the fungi secrete digestive
enzymes.
• These digestive enzymes are carbohydrases,
proteases and lipases.
• These are secreted in to the material around them
which enables them to absorb the soluble products
such as amino acids and sugars.
Hyphae
• Fungi is composed of thin threads called hyphae.
• These grow quickly penetrating dead materials
such as leaves.
• When mould grows on bread it looks like cotton
wool but is in fact a mass of hyphae.
Hyphae
• This mass of hyphae is also known as a fungi
mycelium.
• The hyphae gives the fungi a large surface area to
volume ratio.
• They also contain many nuclei.