Compare and contrast slime molds and water molds.
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Both the slime molds and the water molds are saprobes, and neither of them is fungi, as the names would suggest. In spite of the similarity of names, however, these organisms are more different than they are similar.
Slime molds are classified among the protozoa (Amoebozoa). They are phagocytic organisms without cell walls and occur in two forms: plasmodial and cellular.
The plasmodial coenocytic slime molds are diploid under normal conditions, but under adverse conditions they produce haploid spores that can germinate to produce a unicellular form (myxamoeba) that uses flagella or pseudopodia for motility, depending on conditions. Two compatible myxamoebae fuse to form a new diploid, which, in turn, becomes a new coenocytic plasmodium.
The cellular slime molds are haploid. Under ideal conditions, the cellular slime molds live as single-celled organisms (myxamoebae). When food becomes scarce, the myxamoebae congregate and cooperate to form a sporangium, and some individuals then become spores. No diploidy or meiosis is involved.
The water molds are classified with the algae (Stramenophila), but they do not carry out photosynthesis. They are diploid saprobes with cell walls of cellulose. Their spores are motile by means of two flagella, which are structurally different. Some water molds are plant pathogens.
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You find a protist that has a single flagellum surrounded by a collar of microvilli. You correctly conclude that this
organism is a(n): a. plasmodial slime mold. b. cellular slime mold. c. choanoflagellate. d. foraminiferan. e. alveolate.
In the three domain system of classification,
A. eukaryotes are more similar to the prokaryotes now classified into domain Bacteria than to those now classified into domain Archaea. B. animals and plants are less similar to each other than to the prokaryotes now classified into domain Archaea. C. prokaryotes are classified into two domains, with the organisms in domain Archaea more similar to eukaryotes than to the prokaryotes in the domain Bacteria. D. cladistics alone were used to formulate the new phylogenetic tree of life. E. by the principle of parsimony, it required fewer assumptions to divide the prokaryotes into two domains than it did to put them into a single domain.
The diploid number of chromosomes in mammals is always
A) 46. B) an odd number. C) 23. D) an even number. E) 2.