What Is the Only Type of Fungus That Can Move?

Most fungi move toward food by growing in its direction as they do not have flagella--hairlike structures that make cells capable of movement--in any phase. But fungi in the phylum Chytridiomycota, or chytrids, produce reproductive spores with flagella, making them the only fungi capable of movement.

Description

• According to biologist Jack R. Holt at Susquehanna University, chytrids possess a number of primitive attributes in fungal evolution and likely descend from some of the earliest organisms. Under a microscope, chytrids appear circular.

Significance

• Chytrids hold an important ecological function in degrading materials like chitin, keratin and cellulose within their environment, writes Sharon Mozley-Standridge at Middle Georgia College.

Habitat

• Chytrid zoospores require water-based habitats and are often found in lakes, streams, coastal marine environments and even roadside ditches. However, these fungi can also live in soil or as parasites on certain organisms.

Hosts

• Chytrids live parasitically on or in amphibians, insects, small invertebrates, plants, fruit and even other fungi, notes Mozley-Standridge.

Disease

• Infected insects appear to act as a vector for the fungal disease chytridiosis in vertebrates. As such, chytrids may be responsible for a dramatic global decline in amphibians and fish.