Review figure 20.5 . Are fungi more closely related to animals or to plants? What characteristic

step 1 Hey there, everybody. So today's question asks us to look at figure 20 .5. So open up your textb

Review figure 20.5 . Are fungi more closely related to...

Key Concepts

Phylogenetic Relationships

This concept deals with the evolutionary history and relationships among eukaryotic organisms. Modern molecular studies have revealed that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. This result redefines how we view the tree of life, emphasizing that despite some superficial similarities with plants, fungi and animals share a more recent common ancestor, thereby influencing their genetic, molecular, and metabolic traits.

Fungi-Plant Shared Characteristics

Although fungi are evolutionarily more related to animals, they exhibit some features that are reminiscent of plants. These similarities include being generally sessile organisms, the presence of a cell wall (albeit composed of chitin in fungi versus cellulose in plants), and the use of spores as a means of reproduction. Such shared characteristics historically led to the confusion of classifying fungi as plants prior to the advent of molecular phylogenetics.

Fungi-Animal Shared Characteristics

Fungi share several key traits with animals, most notably in their mode of nutrition and metabolic processes. Both fungi and animals are heterotrophic, meaning they obtain energy by consuming organic matter from their surroundings. Additionally, similarities in biochemical processes and genetic sequences further support the closer evolutionary relationship between fungi and animals, distinguishing them from plants.

Transcript

00:01 Hey there, everybody.

00:01 So today's question asks us to look at figure 20 .5.

00:05 So open up your textbook and look at that.

00:11 All right.

00:14 Oki -dokey.

00:16 So we're talking about fungi.

00:18 Our question can be put into three parts, though.

00:22 So let's start out with part a, which is, are fungi more closely related to plants or animals? got it? okay.

00:56 What characteristics do plants share with fungi? c.

01:14 What characteristics do animals share with fungi? so, this figure is showing us basically their relationship.

01:29 It's a phyla -based one, and then there's the domain.

01:35 So a good thing to remember is that these are all in the domain.

01:40 Eukarya.

01:40 So there are three domains and it's important to remember that they're all eukaryotic organisms.

01:53 How you figure that out which ones are more closely related is you can look at that tree it's given you and it shows like two lines here and here is fungi.

02:04 Here's animals and here is plants.

02:10 So as these two are directly coming from the same branch, animals and fungi, they're going to be more closely related.

02:18 So the answer to a is animals.

02:22 Although a lot of people think of plants and fungi is the same thing.

02:25 That's not actually the truth.

02:27 You can just tell based on their characteristics.

02:30 Now i'm moving on to b...