MYCOJEOPARDY - a game to aid review of fungal facts and fantasy - Midterm Edition

Categories: Down to Basics, Classification Fascination, Name Game, Mycoses, DemoDiscussion, Delightful Insightful & Frightful, Potluck I, Sleazy Diseases, More Diseases, Mycotoxins, Potluck II, Potluck III, Human Diseases

$100 These microscopic, seedlike bodies are the reproductive propagules of fungi.

SPORES

$200 The first short hypha emerging from a germinating spore is called this.

GERM TUBE

$300 Fungus cultures tend to grow in circles which, on lawns, are obvious as these "things".

FAIRY RINGS

$400 These are three fundamental differences between fungi and animals OTHER than reproduction by spores.

ANIMALS DON’T HAVE CELL WALLS, FUNGI DO

ANIMALS SURROUND THEIR FOOD AND DIGEST IT; FUNGI “DIGEST” THEIR FOOD ENTIRELY OUTSIDE OF THE FUNGUS BODY

ANIMALS COMPRISED OF COMPLEX TISSUES AND ORGANS; FUNGUS THALLUS AND REPRODUCTIVE BODIES SIMPLE

$500 These are three types of fruiting bodies that might form to produce spores developing from sexual recombination. Common, descriptive names are OK.

MUSHROOMS

CUPS

BRACKETS

TRUFFLES

PUFFBALLS

$100 This man is responsible for developing our current binomial system for naming living organisms.

LINNAEUS

$200 This Cornellian thought that Fungi were one of three kingdoms arising from the Protista.

WHITTAKER

$300 Illinois' Carl Woesse places the fungus kingdom within this hierarchy.

DOMAIN: EUCARYA

$400 Given the current state of knowledge, the fungus kingdom is more closely related to this other kingdom than to any other.

ANIMALS

$500 This Swedish "Grand Old Man of Mycology" laid the groundwork for current mycological taxonomy with publication of his Systemma Mycologicum.

FRIES

$100 This businessman turned self taught puffball expert was famous for belittling the practice of putting authors' names after fungi.

L.G. LLOYD

$200 This tedious document states the rules for naming newly discovered fungi.

INTERNATIONAL CODE OF BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE

$300 The rules state that the first description of a fungus must be in this language.

LATIN

$400 To name a new fungus, you must convince the rest of the scientific world that this structure is different from all others previously described.

FRUIT-BODY

$500. The official starting date for naming fungi is in this year and for this reason.

1753 - PUBLICATION OF LINNEAUS’ SPECIES PLANTARUM

$100 This fungus disease of the skin, nails, and hair is caused by several different fungi and is common throughout the world.

RINGWORM

$200 For some unknown reason, most fungi that are human pathogens lack this stage of development.

SEXUAL

$300 These are three reasons why the number of people reported to have died from mycotic diseases has increased in recent years while deaths from diseases caused by other pathogens have declined.

INCREASED INCIDENCE OF AIDS

AGING POPULATION

INCREASED INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

ADVANCES IN OTHER MEDICAL TREATMENTS WEAKEN IMMUNE SYSTEM EG. ORGAN TRANSPLANTS, CANCER THERAPY

IMPROVED DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES

GREATER AWARENESS OF FUNGI AS PATHOGENS BY MEDICAL COMMUNITY

$400 A fungus disease common in the southwest U.S., caused by a soil-borne fungus that is inadvertently inhaled by its victims.

VALLEY FEVER, COCCIDIOIDOMYCOSIS

$500 A fungus of this type can grow in two distinctly different morphological forms. Candida albicans is an example.

DIMORPHIC

$100 A typical slime mold plasmodium has this many cells.

ONE

$200 This is fungus that is not a plant pathogen, depends on insects to spread its spores to new sites.

STINKHORN

$300 Shortages of these two items will cause slime molds to produce spores.

FOOD, WATER

$400 This type of microbe, once thought to be a fungus, is studied for the way it signals its individual cells to assume special roles in development.

CELLULAR SLIME MOLD

$500 This unique feature causes some spores to be called “zoospores”.

THEY HAVE FLAGELLA (CAN SWIM)

DELIGHTFUL, INSIGHTFUL & FRIGHTFUL

$100 These hard, black bodies forming in heads of wheat, rye and other grasses are overwintering stages of the ergot fungus.

SCLEROTIA

$200 These are three symptoms of ergot poisoning.

DRY GANGRENE

HALLUCINATIONS

PRICKLY SENSATION ON SKIN

CONVULSIONS

$300 This discoverer of the PCR reaction attributes the genesis of his unique idea, in part, to experiences with LSD.

KERRY MULLIS

$400 These are three of the most common ergot alkaloids.

ERGINE

ERGONOVINE

LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE

$500 These three practices help to keep ergot out of foodstuffs we buy today.

DEEP FALL PLOWING

RIGOROUS INSPECTION OF GRAIN BEFORE IT IS PROCESSED

LEAVE PREVIOUSLY INFESTED FIELDS FALLOW

$100 A CIA project to study LSD as a wartime agent was given this name.

MK ULTRA

$200 Two reasons why the Latin name of a fungus might legitimately be changed.

SEXUAL STAGE FOUND

NUCLEIC ACID SEQUENCING PROVIDES ADEQUATE EVIDENCE

EARLIER NAME FOUND IN LITERATURE

$300 This fungus-caused plant disease yields a culinary delicacy.

CORN SMUT

$400 These are two fundamental differences between slime molds and true fungi.

SLIME MOLDS HAVE SWIMMING SPORES, FUNGI DON’T

FUNGI HAVE CELLS WALLS, SLIME MOLDS DON’T

SLIME MOLD PLASMODIUM SURROUNDS AND ENGULFS FOOD; FUNGUS HYPHAE SECRETE DIGESTIVE ENZYMES

$500 These are three plant pathogenic fungi that depend on insects for transmission to new food sources.

DUTCH ELM DISEASE

OAK WILT

ERGOT

$200 Before the blight, Irish peasants found potatoes to be an especially good crop for them to grow for these three reasons.

PRODUCE LARGE VOLUME IN SMALL SPACE

CROP YIELD

UNDERGROUND SO NOT READILY MEASURED BY LANDLORDS

CROP THRIVED IN COOL, CLOUDY CLIMATE OF IRELAND

CROP COULD BE STORED FOR A LONG TIME AFTER HARVEST

$400 Professor Millardet noticed the fungicidal properties of copper sulfate when a vintner used the chemical for this other purpose.

TO DISCOURAGE PEOPLE FROM STEALING THE GRAPES

$600 Rusts and other fungi that must have living hosts to complete their life cycles are called this.

OBLIGATE PARASITES

$800 These three features of potato culture in Ireland preceding the blight years set the stage for disaster.

GENETICALLY UNIFORM CROP

CULL POTATOES (INCLUDING SOME WITH BLIGHT) ROUTINELY

DISCARDED ON SIDES OF FIELDS

POTATOES WERE THE SOLE SOURCE OF FOOD FOR MANY PEASANTS

$1000 This is why barberry eradication is so important in managing wheat rust in North America.

IT REDUCES CHANCES FOR SEXUAL RECOMBINATION OF THE PATHOGEN AND PROLONGS USEFUL LIVES OF RESISTANT WHEAT VARIETIES

$200 These are two tree diseases, other than Chestnut blight, that apparently entered the U.S. through New York State.

DUTCH ELM DISEASE

DOGWOOD ANTHRACNOSE

$400 These are two reasons why chestnut blight persisted even after most mature trees were dead and gone.

FUNGUS DIDN’T KILL ROOTS SO SUSCEPTIBLE INDIVIDUALS RESPROUTED

FUNGUS COULD SURVIVE ON HOSTS OTHER THAN CHESTNUT

$600 This is why most fungus-caused leaf diseases of trees don't cause serious harm to their hosts.

LEAVES ARE LOST LATE IN THE SEASON AFTER MOST REPLENISHMENT OF FOOD RESERVES HAS OCCURRED

$800 Formation of one of these is the typical reaction when chestnut blight infects Chinese chestnut.

TARGET CANKER

$1000 These clusters of spore-bearing hyphae are typically produced by the Dutch elm disease fungus.

SYNNEMATA, COREMIA

$200 A poisoning episode by this mycotoxin in 1960 England triggered a flurry of research on the subject that continues to this day.

AFLATOXIN

$400 These are three symptoms of mycotoxin poisoning in animals.

SPONTANEOUS ABORTION

SLOBBERING

FEED REFUSAL

LOSS OF MUSCULAR COORDINATION (STAGGERS)

$600 U.S. government officials alleged that the Soviet Union used mycotoxins as biowarfare agents when this supposedly toxic stuff fell from the sky in Southeast Asia.

YELLOW RAIN

$800 In the Stachybotrys poisoning episode of infants in Cleveland this is how the mycotoxin got into the babies' bodies.

SPORES WITH TOXIN INHALED BY INFANTS

$1000 Reduce mycotoxin incidence to day with these two management strategies.

IMPROVED STORAGE CONDITIONS (DRY, NO OXYGEN)

MONITOR CROPS GOING INTO STORAGE FOR TOXIN CONTAMINATION

$200 Of major agronomic crops grown in the U.S. today, this is one of the few that is native to North America.

CORN

$400 Sterol inhibitors are useful for controlling human mycoses for this reason.

THEY INHIBIT A CHEMICAL REACTION THAT IS UNIQUE TO FUNGI AND NOT PART OF MAMMALIAN METABOLISM

$600 This plant disease is caused by a fungus that never invades host tissue.

SOOTY MOLD

$800 This religious figure was associated with nursing people plagued by ergotism.

ST. ANTHONY

$1000 This is the time of year when the cedar-apple rust fungus will produce spores on the woody juniper galls.

SPRING

POT LUCK III

$200 This kind of fungus has up to a dozen spore packets in a cup-like structure, and the packets are splashed out when the cup is hit with a drop of water.

BIRD’S NEST FUNGUS

$400 Sugary excrement from scale insects is called this.

HONEYDEW

$600 Bracket fungi commonly produce their spores on gills or in these structures.

TUBES

$800 Make one of these by placing the cap of a mushroom on a piece of paper and covering it for a few hours.

SPORE PRINT

$1000 Fungi that grow toward light or that shoot spores toward the brightest light are exhibiting this property.

PHOTOTROPISM

$200 A fungus disease occasionally contracted by gardeners and horticulturists who work with unsterile peat moss.

$400 Drugs used to control fungus diseases of people are more likely to have unpleasant effects for this reason.

SIMILARITIES IN METABOLISM BETWEEN FUNGUS AND MAMMALIAN CELLS.

$600 These are three reasons why the number of deaths due to mycoses has increased in recent decades.

AGING POPULATION

INCREASED INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

INCREASED INCIDENCE OF AIDS

ADVANCEMENTS IN MEDICAL TREATMENTS SUCH AS ORGAN TRANSPLANTS AND CHEMOTHERAPY

$800 This was the first antifungal drug discovered. Oddly enough, it is produced by a fungus.

GRISEOFULVIN

$1000 About 8 different species of Aspergillus have been implicated in potentially serious diseases of this human organ.

LUNG (DISEASE IS ASPERGILLOSIS)