Lecture 1:

‘Peat’ is an important source of domestic fuel in several countries. How
is ‘peat’ formed in nature?

Make a list of algae and fungi that have commercial value as source of
food, chemicals, medicines and fodder.

Apart from chlorophyll, algae have several other pigments in their
chloroplast. What pigments are found in blue-green, red and brown
algae that are responsible for their characteristic colours?

Fungi are cosmopolitan, write the role of fungi in your daily life.

What observable features in Trypanosoma would make you classify it
under kingdom Protista?

At a stage of their cycle, ascomycetes fungi produce the fruiting bodies
like apothecium, perithecium or cleistothecium. How are these three
types of fruiting bodies different from each other?

Cyanobacteria and heterotrophic bacteria have been clubbed together
in Eubacteria of kingdom Monera as per the “Five Kingdom
Classification” even though the two are vastly different from each other.
Is this grouping of the two types of taxa in the same kingdom justified?
If so, why?

Neurospora - an ascomycetes fungus has been used as a biological tool
to understand the mechanism of plant genetics much in the same way
as Drosophila has been used to study animal genetics. What makes
Neurospora so important as a genetic tool?

There is a myth that immediately after heavy rains in forest, mushrooms
appear in large number and make a very large ring or circle, which may
be several metres in diameter. These are called as ‘Fairy rings’. Can you
explain this myth of fairy rings in biological terms?

In the five kingdom system of Whittaker, how many kingdoms are
eukaryotes?

How is the five–kingdom classification advantageous over the twokingdom
classification?

What are the different groups of fungi?

State an economically important use of
i) Heterotrophic bacteria.
ii) Archaebacteria.

Compare salient features of monera & protista.

What are distributed organisms which have not been included under any
kingdom?

Name the fungus causes the rust of wheat?

Define experimental taxonomy?

Write the diagnostic characters of kingdom monera.

Give a comparative account of classes of kingdom fungi on the basis of mode
of nutrition & mode of reproduction.

Give scientific name of species of fungus:-
a) Produces a plant disease.
b) Is edible
c) A source of antibiotic
d) Used in manufacture of ethanol.

What are the demerits of five kingdom classification?

Why are some fungi grouped under “fungi imperfecti”?

Name the fungus from which LSD drug is obtained?

Explain the various methods of asexual & sexual reproduction in fungi?

Distinguish between bacteria & cyanobacteria?

Explain phylogenetic system of classification?

In which class of fungi sexual reproduction does not occur?

Which organisms are known as “Jokers of plant kingdom”

Name the five kingdoms in which the organisms are grouped together?

Write the distinct characters of fungi & explain using a diagram.

Explain sexual reproduction in bacteria?

Give one example of a fungus as a soure of antibiotics?