How could you determine whether the organism is a fungus?

Answer 1

Plants are producers, they produce their own food using green organelles known as chloroplasts, these green chloroplasts contain green chlorophyll. In other words plants are green and make their own food while growing in sunny locations.

Of course their are exceptions, sometimes other color pigments are more noticeable in plants. If you do not know what I mean then look out the window at some trees in the fall and you will see what I mean.

Another difference is plants have roots and mold have tiny fibers known as mycelium. Mycelium serves similar purposes as roots but are found in fungi and not plants.

Plants produce their own food, fungi are decomposers, thus fungi break down dead organisms to obtain foods.

And one more thing, mold and plants have chemically different cell walls. Plants have cellulose in their ceil walls and fungi or mold have chitin in their cell walls.

Some fungi are also green, but the green pigments in mold is not from chloroplasts, it is from the fungi / molds spores.

One bit of info you will not find in the books is that if a green mold like substance is growing in a moist area indoors it is almost always Pen Asp mold or Trichoderma viride mold. If a similar looking green substance is growing on wet surfaces outdoors, or indoors near a sunny window, it is almost always algae. Green mold seldom grows in sunny outdoor places, and algae seldom grows in shady indoor environments. This is based on many years of personal observations of mold and algae as a professional mold inspector.

Answer 2

colony surface color, underside pigmentation, hyphal structure, types of spores (asexual and sexual)

Answer 3

Fungi get their food from other living organisms, but plants get their food from sunlight. You see fungus (molds, mushrooms, yeast) feeding on living organisms but plants can not do that.

Answer 4

by biochemical analysis such as certain chemical components. for example, chitin and polysaccharide in their cell walls and sterol, ergosterol in their cell membranes.

Answer 5

fungi have reproductive spores and distinct hyphae which set them apart from other organisms