Back to Faculty Page
Many of the water molds are saprobles that grow on decaying organic materials in freshwater streams, ponds and roadside ditches and can be easily isolated in pure culture. We are particularly interested in studying representatives of the class Chytridiomycetes. The organisms in the order Blastocladiales have been especially amendable to study. Blastocladiella emersonii, a saprobe, grows as a simple saclike cell with basal rhizoids and produces a single zoosporangium or resistant sporangium on separate thalli. See life cycle on back cover. Allomyces species are also sprobic organisms but grow as branching mycelia on which both zoosporangia and resistant sporangia are produced. They also have an alternation of generations in that a haploid mycelial phase produces both male and female gametes. Members of the genus Blastocladia are facultative anaerobes or obligate fermenters that produce sporangia on branched thalli. Catenaria species produce zoosporangia in linear series connected by septate isthmuses.
We are also interested in studying the biology of members of the class Hyphochytriomycetes. The zoospores of the Hyphocytriomycetes have a single anterior flagellum which bears mastigonemes (hairs) (see figure). Members of this class are abundant in a wide range of soil types and may be cosmopolitan in their distribution. Some have been reported as parasites on Oomycetes. The phylogenetic relationship of the Hyphochytriomycetes to Oomycetes is uncertain - which is one of the reasons why we studied the ultrastructure of the zoospore of the Hyphochytriomycete Hyphochytrium catenoidesand the ultrastructure of mitosis in the Hyphochytriomycete Rhizidiomzyces apophysatus.