[warning: infectious agents, gross factor]
most of them are caused by “dimorphic” fungi that live in the wild as mold, and transform into pathogenic yeast in the human body
when we get them in a lab & start growing them to try to figure out the species, one of the biggest distinguishing features we’re looking for is spores - either asexual or sexual, many different varieties of each. asexual spores are easy to produce in a lab, but the sexual ones are not - and the deal is, to get sexual spores, you have to grow the thing on worse media - you remove nutrients from the agar, make the conditions less favorable.
and it totally makes sense; asexual reproduction creates clones, so if a fungus is comfortable & well-fed, it’s not going to mess up a good thing by screwing around with its genetic make-up - it’s going to keep doing exactly what it’s doing. the reverse is true in unfavorable conditions; it makes sense to start experimenting with new genetic combinations, to see if any offspring fare better.
it’s just, I can’t get over the image of a fungus being like, “oh no oh shit, why is this suddenly not working?? better fuck”
