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Thanatophage
Thanatophages, are organisms that obtain nutrients by consuming decomposing dead plant biomass. Ecology In food webs, thanatophages generally play the roles of decomposers. The eating of wood, whether live or dead, is known as xylophagy. The activity of animals feeding only on dead wood is called sapro-xylophagy and those animals, sapro-xylophagous. ''Saprophytes'' ''Saprophyte'' (''-phyte'' meaning "plant") is a botanical term that is no longer in popular use, as such plants have been discovered to actually be parasitic on fungi. There are no real saprotrophic organisms that are embryophytes, and fungi and bacteria are no longer placed in the plant kingdom. Plants that were once considered saprophytes, such as non-photosynthetic orchids and monotropes, are now known to be parasites on fungi. These species are now termed myco-heterotrophs.Werner PG. 2006Myco-heterotrophs: Hacking the mycorrhizal network. ''Mycena News'' 57:1,8. See also *Necrophage *Detritivore Detrit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Necrophage
Necrophages are organisms that obtain nutrients by consuming decomposing dead animal biomass, such as the muscle and soft tissue of carcasses and corpses. The term derives from Greek , meaning 'dead', and , meaning 'to eat.' Mainly, necrophages are species within the phylum Arthropoda; however, other animals, such as gastropods and Accipitrimorphae birds have been noted to engage in necrophagy. Necrophages play a critical role in the study of forensic entomology, as certain Arthropoda, such as Diptera larvae, engage in myiasis and colonization of the human body. Invertebrates Diptera Members of the order Diptera, such as Nematocera, Calliphoridae, Sacrophagidae, and Muscidae, as well as semi-aquatic Diptera larvae, such as Simuliidae and Chironomidae, are the most common necrophages within the Animalia kingdom. Diptera species play a critical role in forensic entomology, as they tend to colonize the human body during the early floating phase of decomposition. The flies util ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psila Rosae Maggot, Wortelvlieg Made
''Psila'' is a European genus of flies which is a member of the family Psilidae or rust flies. Genera * ''Psila acmocephala'' * '' Psila aethiopica'' * ''Psila albiseta'' * '' Psila amurensis'' * ''Psila andreji'' * ''Psila angustata'' * ''Psila apicalis'' * ''Psila arbustorum'' * ''Psila asiatica'' * ''Psila atlasica'' * ''Psila atra'' * ''Psila atrata'' * ''Psila bicolor'' * ''Psila bimaculata'' * ''Psila bivittata'' * ''Psila calobatoides'' * ''Psila caucasica'' * ''Psila celidoptera'' * ''Psila clunalis'' * ''Psila collaris'' * ''Psila crassula'' * ''Psila dichroa'' * ''Psila dimidiata'' * ''Psila dimorpha'' * ''Psila dolichocera'' * ''Psila dubia'' * ''Psila emiliae'' * ''Psila exigua'' * ''Psila fallax'' * ''Psila fenestralis'' * ''Psila fimetaria'' * ''Psila flavigena'' * ''Psila freidbergi'' * ''Psila freyi'' * ''Psila frontalis'' * ''Psila fulviseta'' * '' Psila gracilis'' * ''Psila hebraica'' * ''Psila hennigi'' * ''Psila hexachaeta'' * ''Psila himalayensis'' * '' Psila ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monotropaceae
Monotropoideae, sometimes referred to as monotropes, are a flowering plant subfamily in the family Ericaceae. Members of this subfamily are notable for their mycoheterotrophic and non-photosynthesizing or achlorophyllous characteristics. Description The overall morphology of these plants is highly reduced compared to other members of the Ericaceae, which are practically all subshrubs, shrubs, or trees. By contrast, the Monotropoideae are all herbaceous perennials, in which an annual shoot reemerges seasonally (in spring or early summer, depending on climate) from a perennial root. The shoot can be characterized as a single inflorescence or cluster of inflorescences, and is generally a raceme with one to many flowers per axis, though occasionally the raceme may be so reduced as to appear similar to a spike, and in ''Monotropa'', the inflorescence can take the form of a solitary flower. Notably, the shoots are achlorophyllous, in keeping with the mycoheterotrophic and non-photos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eating Behaviors
Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter, and detritivores eat detritus. Fungi digest organic matter outside their bodies as opposed to animals that digest their food inside their bodies. For humans, eating is an activity of daily living. Some individuals may limit their amount of nutritional intake. This may be a result of a lifestyle choice, due to hunger or famine, as part of a diet or as religious fasting. Eating practices among humans Many homes have a large kitchen area devoted to preparation of meals and food, and may have a dining room, dining hall, or another designated area for eating. Most societies also have restaurants, food courts, and food vendors so that people may eat when away ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decomposer
Decomposers are organisms that break down dead or decaying organisms; they carry out decomposition, a process possible by only certain kingdoms, such as fungi. Like herbivores and predators, decomposers are heterotrophic, meaning that they use organic substrates to get their energy, carbon and nutrients for growth and development. While the terms decomposer and detritivore are often interchangeably used, detritivores ''ingest'' and digest dead matter internally, while decomposers ''directly absorb'' nutrients through external chemical and biological processes. Thus, invertebrates such as earthworms, woodlice, and sea cucumbers are technically detritivores, not decomposers, since they must ingest nutrients - they are unable to absorb them externally. Fungi The primary decomposer of litter in many ecosystems is fungi. Unlike bacteria, which are unicellular organisms and are decomposers as well, most saprotrophic fungi grow as a branching network of hyphae. While bacteria a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detritivore
Detritivores (also known as detrivores, detritophages, detritus feeders, or detritus eaters) are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus (decomposing plant and animal parts as well as feces). There are many kinds of invertebrates, vertebrates and plants that carry out coprophagy. By doing so, all these detritivores contribute to decomposition and the nutrient cycles. They should be distinguished from other decomposers, such as many species of bacteria, fungi and protists, which are unable to ingest discrete lumps of matter, but instead live by absorbing and metabolizing on a molecular scale ( saprotrophic nutrition). The terms ''detritivore'' and ''decomposer'' are often used interchangeably, but they describe different organisms. Detritivores are usually arthropods and help in the process of remineralization. Detritivores perform the first stage of remineralization, by fragmenting the dead plant matter, allowing decomposers to perform the second stage of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mycological Society Of San Francisco
The Mycological Society of San Francisco (MSSF) is an amateur club based in the San Francisco Bay Area, "dedicated to promoting the understanding and enjoyment of fungi." Meetings are held every third Tuesday, and the society newsletter, ''Mycena News'', is published once a month during the mushroom season, from September to May. Activities In addition to the general meetings, members hold numerous formal and informal fungi-hunting "forays" throughout the year. The Society also hosts an annual "Fungus Fair" aimed at educating the general public with mushroom displays, identification booths, and fungus-oriented activities. Community MSSF members often lend their expertise in mushroom identification to local authorities in possible poisoning cases. Since many of these occur to recent immigrants from countries with edible lookalikes, the Society has also produced a number of posters with pictures and warnings in multiple languages. In line with their goals of promoting the enjoyme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myco-heterotrophy
Myco-heterotrophy (from Greek μύκης , "fungus", ἕτερος ', "another", "different" and τροφή ', "nutrition") is a symbiotic relationship between certain kinds of plants and fungi, in which the plant gets all or part of its food from parasitism upon fungi rather than from photosynthesis. A myco-heterotroph is the parasitic plant partner in this relationship. Myco-heterotrophy is considered a kind of cheating relationship and myco-heterotrophs are sometimes informally referred to as "mycorrhizal cheaters". This relationship is sometimes referred to as mycotrophy, though this term is also used for plants that engage in mutualistic mycorrhizal relationships. Relationship between myco-heterotrophs and host fungi Full (or obligate) myco-heterotrophy exists when a non-photosynthetic plant (a plant largely lacking in chlorophyll or otherwise lacking a functional photosystem) gets all of its food from the fungi that it parasitizes. Partial (or facultative) myco-heterotr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasite
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as Armillaria mellea, honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the Orobanchaceae, broomrapes. There are six major parasitic Behavioral ecology#Evolutionarily stable strategy, strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), wikt:trophic, trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), Disease vector, vector-transmitted paras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchidaceae
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. The Orchidaceae have about 28,000 currently accepted species, distributed in about 763 genera. (See ''External links'' below). The determination of which family is larger is still under debate, because verified data on the members of such enormous families are continually in flux. Regardless, the number of orchid species is nearly equal to the number of bony fishes, more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. The family encompasses about 6–11% of all species of seed plants. The largest genera are '' Bulbophyllum'' (2,000 species), '' Epidendrum'' (1,500 species), '' Dendrobium'' (1,400 species) and '' Pleurothallis'' (1,000 species). It also includes '' Vanilla'' (the genus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nutrient
A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excreted by cells to create non-cellular structures, such as hair, scales, feathers, or exoskeletons. Some nutrients can be metabolically converted to smaller molecules in the process of releasing energy, such as for carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and fermentation products (ethanol or vinegar), leading to end-products of water and carbon dioxide. All organisms require water. Essential nutrients for animals are the energy sources, some of the amino acids that are combined to create proteins, a subset of fatty acids, vitamins and certain minerals. Plants require more diverse minerals absorbed through roots, plus carbon dioxide and oxygen absorbed through leaves. Fungi live on dead or living organic matter and meet nutrient needs from thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
