CHAPTER 19: The Physiology of Reproduction: Asexual

As the pioneering research cited in the previous chapter demonstrates, the kinds and concentrations of nutrients affect the development of the asexual apparatus of watermolds. The beginning efforts to study the relationship between nutrition and morphogenesis, not only of the sporangia but of the sexual apparatus as well, were severely hampered by lack of attention to precise chemical definition of the media in which the species were grown and tested. With time, experimental and observational work on the physiological aspects of asexual reproduction became more refined. The explanations for some morphogenetic events in the life of watermolds, however, are still elusive.