Systematics and Evolution: Part B (The Mycota) - Tapa dura

Mycology, the study of fungi, originated as a subdiscipline of botany and was a des­ criptive discipline, largely neglected as an experimental science until the early years of this century. A seminal paper by Blakeslee in 1904 provided evidence for self­ incompatibility, termed "heterothallism", and stimulated interest in studies related to the control of sexual reproduction in fungi by mating-type specificities. Soon to follow was the demonstration that sexually reproducing fungi exhibit Mendelian inheritance and that it was possible to conduct formal genetic analysis with fungi. The names Burgetf, Kniep and Lindegren are all associated with this early period of fungal genet­ ics research. These studies and the discovery of penicillin by Fleming, who shared a Nobel Prize in 1945, provided further impetus for experimental research with fungi. Thus began a period of interest in mutation induction and analysis of mutants for biochemical traits. Such fundamental research, conducted largely with Neurospora crassa, led to the one gene: one enzyme hypothesis and to a second Nobel Prize for fungal research awarded to Beadle and Tatum in 1958. Fundamental research in biochemical genetics was extended to other fungi, especially to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and by the mid-1960s fungal systems were much favored for studies in eukaryotic molecular biology and were soon able to compete with bacterial systems in the molecular arena.

This is an exciting time to produce an overview of the systematics and evolution of the fungi. Molecular and subcellular characters have given us our first view of the true phylogeny of the fungi. The systematic chapters present detailed illustrated treatments of specific fungal groups with the authors' interpretation of the systematics of that group as well as a survey of specific economic, ecological, morphological, ultrastructural, molecular and cultural data. Other chapters, in addition to treating techniques useful in modern mycology, provide the reader with views of the place of the fungi among the Eukaryotes and relationships within the Mycota. Volume VII, Part A, includes an overview of the fungal hierarchy, Pseudomycota, Chytridiomycota, Zygomycota, Ascomycota and their yeasts, and anamorphic states. Volume VII, Part B, includes the Basidiomycota and their yeasts, and chapters on speciation, molecular evolution, preservation, computer techniques, and nomenclature.