How Do Fungi Obtain Food. Fungi are able to obtain their nutrients from both dead and living organic materials. It all depends on the characteristics of the fungi plus its environment.
Kew Gardens adds that fungi function like an inside-out version of an animals stomach. They get their food by growing on other living organisms and getting their food from that organism. Some types of fungi are parasites.
Fungi are heterotropicthey cannot photosynthesize.
So they cannot make their own food from sunlight water and carbon dioxide as plants do. Fungi are able to obtain their nutrients from both dead and living organic materials. Like animals fungi obtain their food from other organisms. Depending on the food source fungi turned off certain genes and shifted which enzymes they were producing.