What characteristics make oomycetes different from the true fungi?
The oomycetes, commonly called water molds, are more closely related to other Protists than to true fungi. True fungi are more closely related to animals, than to plants and protists. There are some important characteristics of oomycetes that are very different from true fungi: • The mycelium cell wall is primarily cellulose, rather than chitin as in true fungi. Also, there are generally no septa or crosswalls dividing the cytoplasm into “sections”. (Some do form in injured and old hyphae and sometimes at the base of reproductive structures.) In species studied, the vegetative nuclei are diploid. In true fungi, nuclei are generally haploid or dikaryotic (pairs of genetically different haploid nuclei that divide in tandem). • The sexual spores are oospores (or oospheres) produced from the pairing of antheridia and oogonia. These are an important source of genetic variation from generation to generation. In addition, the thick-walled spores are important survival structures during advers
