How do Agaricomycetes shape their fruiting bodies? 1. Morphological aspects of development

Publication date: Available online 2 July 2015 Source:Fungal Biology Reviews Author(s): Ursula Kües , Mónica Navarro-González Fruiting body formation in Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycotina) represents the most complex developmental processes known in the fungal kingdom. Shapes range from simple resupinate forms with open hymenia through to closed puff-balls and false truffles with internally hidden hymenia and include brackets and stiped mushrooms, which may have open caps throughout or which open during development, where the hymenia cover the surfaces of gills or pores. Mushroom shapes and features do not necessarily reflect close or distant phylogenetic relationships. Thus, morphological characteristics have lost some of their former significance in taxonomy. The onset and progress of courses of processes in mushroom formation are determined by the sum of various genetic, physiological and environmental factors. Shapes of mushrooms can be dramatically changed by mutations and by adverse environmental conditions. Events in normal fruiting body formation may run in parallel or behind each other in the form of ‘subroutines’ that have different degrees of independency to each other. Alterations in details or in places and orders of distinct subroutines and omissions can result in abnormal mushrooms. Developmental processes, time courses and tissue structures have been described in more details for a few model species (such as the hemiangiocarpous Coprinopsis cinerea a...
Source: Fungal Biology Reviews - Category: Biology Source Type: research