“fungi are more related to humans than to plants”
I read this statement in a newsletter (Your Local Epidemiologist) and I’m astonished, intrigued, and more than a little creeped out.
I knew they’re not plants; they’re very different.
But… more like humans??
For context, the discussion was about fungal infections in humans, and the drugs we have to treat same. Only 4 basic classes of drugs!
It’s a balancing act trying to kill the fungus and spare the person, apparently more so than with bacteria or viruses. (Viri?)
Comments
Fungi are closer to animals in general than to plants. Plants have chlorophyll and make their own energy from the sun and carbon dioxide and produce oxygen as a byproduct. Fungi are closer to animals in that they consume other organisms for food, most need oxygen and they produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct like we do. Fungal cells, therefore are more similar to animal cells than to plant cells.
Some similarities that can be seen without help of molecular biology:
Humans store sugar as glycogen. Fungi use glycogen as well. Plants use starch.
Human sperms have a single flagellum on the back. Some fungi also have moving cells with a single flagellum on the back. Plants that have sperms with flagella will have them at the front.
Humans have no chloroplasts. Similarly fungi. Plants have them.
It doesn’t mean they’re closely related to humans, just that while they’re very very distantly related to plants, they are slightly less distantly, but still very distantly, related to animals and humans.
Back when we were all single celled organisms some organisms evolved to be able to make their own food, I think through chemosynthesis to begin with and later photosynthesis, others had to eat other organisms to find their food.
That is where plants branched off from the line that we, animals and fungi were still on.
It’s a long long time ago and were not very closely related to fungi, but closer than plants.
Think of the tree of life, starting from the first single-celled organism, and then branching over time into all the different species you see today. At each branching point is the last common ancestor of the two branches. The closer to the present the branch is, the more closely the present descendants of the branch are. The branching point where fungi separate from animals is closer to the present than the point where plants separate from animals/fungi.