What mycorrhiza in biology?

In nature, there are many very interesting adaptations that help living beings.They exist in both animals and plants, fungi, bacteria and others.It's amazing how creative and unique natural environment!One has only to recall the variety of different species of living beings, it becomes obvious that uniqueness.

One of these wonders of nature can be called interesting symbiosis between different realms - gribokoren - a phenomenon that helps to survive in the fierce competition for nutrients.What gribokoren or mycorrhiza?We expand this concept in the article.

kingdom Fungi: general characteristics

To begin to remember all who are mushrooms and what they represent?In biology, there is a special section, a separate discipline, which aims to study these organisms.It is called mycology.According to recent data, today there are more than a hundred thousand different types of fungi as a unicellular and multicellular.

considerable figure, the more so that the kingdom of nature is developing rapidly and the number of progressing.A special variety of parasitic and saprophytic reach form.

fungi occupy a special position in the organic world due to the presence of a number of characteristic features of the structure and way of life.Therefore, all of them are combined in a separate kingdom.

Features mushrooms

What are these features?All the matter in the likeness of representatives of both plants and animals.For a long time it puts scientists in a deadlock.After being obtained unique and incomprehensible time combines symptoms completely opposite organisms.

So, to the general features, combining mushrooms with plants include:

  • inside the body the ability to synthesize plant hormones and vitamins;
  • unlimited apical growth throughout life;
  • attached lifestyle (lack of ambulation);
  • the presence of a strong cell wall;
  • powered by suction substances.

However, there are signs that the organism in question have in common with animals:

  • heterotrophic way of eating (ie, consumption of finished organic compounds, they can not be self-synthesis within the body);
  • presence in the cell wall chitin complex carbohydrate, which consist of covers crustaceans, insects and other animals beings.

combination of these features and allows us to consider the mushrooms unique creatures deserve to be united into a single kingdom wildlife.

general plan of the structure of the fungus

main feature in the structure of the organism in question - is hyphae that form the mycelium and fruiting bodies of higher Basidiomycetes.They are thin filaments are white or semi-transparent, which consist of cells separated by partitions.Highly branched hyphae, interwoven, grow together and form a large underground network - mycelium.Outside, they also form a fruiting body in higher fungi - foot and hat.

All other representatives of hyphae only serve to form a mycelium.Last necessary for the absorption of nutrients, vegetative reproduction, and sexual spore formation process.

This mushroom is involved in the formation of gribokornya.So what mycorrhizae, it is clear, if you know what is represented by the body itself.This combination of the underground fungi with the roots of higher plants.A kind of mutually beneficial cooperation, helps to survive both entities.

Thus, fungal hyphae form mycelium, it is intertwined with the roots and form mycorrhiza or gribokoren.This is the main feature in the structure and way of life of a large part of representatives of the reporting kingdom.

What mycorrhiza in biology: definition

put this unique phenomenon from a scientific point of view, one can only wonder again mastery of living beings in fitness to survive.To give a more precise notion of what is in the biology of mycorrhiza can be using the definition.This symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants, which are carried out through close weave of the mycelium and roots in the underground environment.

term "mycorrhiza" was proposed in 1885 by a scientist, Frank.The existence of this phenomenon became known four years earlier.What is the mycorrhiza fungus, explained in 1881 the Russian scientist FyodorKamensky.It was he who first studied and described gribokoren.

Almost all higher plants enter into similar relationships with fungi, and not only to those we used to see and gather in the forest, but also with smaller, even underground.This symbiosis was so successful and beneficial for both sides, lack of mycorrhizal plants is considered to be the exception in nature.

What classes of fungi capable of the phenomenon under consideration?

  1. Basidiomycetes (hymenomycete, Gasteromycetes).
  2. Ascomycetes (most species).
  3. Zygomycota (some species).

What plants are able to enter into a symbiosis with the fungus mycelium?

  1. Almost all representatives of perennial related to a variety of life forms (grass, bushes, trees).
  2. Very rarely annuals.

generally do not form gribokoren those representatives that live on the water surface and its thickness.

Classification

We found that a mycorrhiza, the definition given to it.Now consider what types gribokornya happen, because it turns out that is not so simple.There is a classification that reflects the variations of this symbiosis.

There are three major types of mycorrhizae:

  • endotrophic ("endo" - inside);
  • ectotrophic ("ecto" - outside);
  • mixed or endoektotrofnaya.

Let us consider each of said type.

endotrophic mycorrhiza

mycorrhiza endotrophic What type?It is this interaction between fungi and plant roots, wherein the mycelium is generally not outside, but inside is completely absorbed.The hyphae penetrate the coating cells and develop within themselves the roots, sucking the juices of plants.At the same time some of the mycelium is dissolved and goes to food.

interesting is the feature that endophytic fungi are transmitted in the form of a dispute over succession in one and the same plant species.That is, in the pollen spores penetrate, get out of there in the seed, and the new plant body from birth is composed of a mushroom-endofit.

presence of mycelium inside the root does not affect its normal development, branching, and so on.Mushroom unnoticed outside at all.

Ekzotrofnaya mycorrhiza

On the question of what type of mycorrhiza ekzotrofnogo, the answer is obvious.It is logical to conclude that it is noticeable outside education.It really is.Mushrooms-ektofity have a well-developed, powerful, branching mycelium.The hyphae are so tightly wrap the roots of plants, it turns a kind of cover.This root hairs die off as unnecessary.

individual strings hyphae can penetrate the plant tissue under a cover, but inside the cells themselves do not fall.This type gribokornya most commonly formed between trees and fungi agaricales.That is why many people find edible species of whole families in the shadow of the crown of a tree.

Mixed mycorrhiza

What mycorrhiza mixed type?This is a unique symbiosis of endo- and ektogribov with the roots of plants at the same time.The most common type gribokornya.Another name - endoektomikoriza.

It is clear that the essence of this phenomenon lies in the simultaneous penetration of hyphae into root cells and thus forming a dense cover of them outside.Most often, this symbiosis is observed between pileate agaricales mushrooms and a variety of trees.Example: aspen, birch, fly agaric, white fungus and other.

Many species can not exist without the mycorrhizae, so still have not found ways to artificial cultivation.

Significance of mycorrhiza fungus in life

Now we know what mycorrhizae.And its value and should not remain a secret.It is obvious that the main role - the exchange of nutrients between two different organisms.

plant that turns out as a result of this symbiosis?

  1. increases the area of ​​the suction surface by multiple branching hyphae.
  2. fungus provides water and minerals.
  3. plant receives hormones, vitamins.
  4. fungus needs many compound form that can be assimilated by plants (e.g., potassium, calcium, sodium, phosphorus, and so forth).

What does a fungus on plants?

  1. organic compounds, mainly carbohydrate.
  2. amino acids.
  3. some plant hormones and growth substances.

Thus, mycorrhizae - it is quite beneficial cooperation is often vital to both sides.