Traditionally, organisms that are eukaryotic, spore-producing, no chlorophyll with absorptive nutrition, reproduce both sexually and asexually, and whose filamentous somatic structures are surrounded by cell walls are classified as fungi. However, it's apparent now that organisms traditionally classified as fungi are not at all closely related. For examples, the Oomycota and the Slime Molds are no longer considered as fungi based on morphology, biochemistry, and rDNA sequence but myc ologists continue to study them because of their similarity to the true fungi in terms of nutrition, ecology, and other morphological characteristics. B. Characteristics of the True Fungi Like plants, fungi have secondary metabolites and synthesize lysine. Like animals, they store their food in the form of glycogen.
Fungi are heterotrophic and have absorptive nutrition.
The role of fungi in life is to maintain carbon by recycling it. Collective or mass of hyphae is called a mycelium. Not all fungi are filamentous. For example, yeasts exist as single-celled cells. Some species of fungi exhibit dimorphism, that is, they can exist as either filamentous or single cells.