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Rhizopus sp (bread molds, Rhizopus, Mucor, etc.). The Zygomycota has the simiplest of life cycles. Asexual reproduction consists of the hyphae producing an erect thread-like structure with a bulb or sporangium. The sporangium products haploid spores that are shed, germinate, and produce more fungal hyphae. The classic example of the Zygomycota is Rhizopus, black bread mold.
Zygospora Sexual reproduction is the simplest in these fungi. Hyphal filaments of two different "individuals" line up side by side and pieces, each containing a nucleus, are pinched off. The two "gametes" fuse into a diploid zygote. The zygote is shed, undergoes meiosis, and the haploid results form new fungal individuals.
Basidiomycota (mushrooms, rusts, smuts, etc.). The Basidiomycota are the familiar mushrooms, although there are several species of Basidiomycota that would not be immediately recognizable as mushrooms such as the rusts and smuts. Sexual reproduction in the Basidiomycota produces a structure with the familiar mushroom shape and results in haploid spores called basidia. The process is similar to that of the Ascomycota, but the details and the structures produced are different.
Ascomycota The cup fungi are characterized by a cup-like sexual reproductive structure and the production of a series of sacks, each called an ascus. Two different individuals mingle and produce the characteristic cup-shaped structure. At the same time a subterranean structure forms containing nuclei from both individuals. This subterranean structure sends up strands into the cup where the ascus is formed, the nuclei fuse and in a fairly complicated process of mitosis and meiosis produce eight spores which are shed to produce new fungal individuals. Ascomycota species also reproduce asexually very much like the Zygomycota. The erect structure is called a condiophore and the resulting spores (conidia) are grouped together.
Deuteromycota The fungi imperfectae (or Deuteromycota) are a miscellaneous group of species for which sexual reproductive structures are unknown. Consequently they cannot be assigned to any of the above three groups. Examples are Pencillium and the fungi producing Atheletes Foot and the so-called "yeast infections".