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Rust fungi on a plant. The study of gene-for-gene interactions uncovers genetic components, evolutionary impacts, and ecological/economic implications between rust fungi and plants. Rust fungi utilize the gene-for-gene interaction to invade host plants. Conversely, host plants utilize the gene-for-gene interaction to prevent invasion of rust fungi.
Mycoforestry is an ecological forest management system implemented to enhance forest ecosystems and plant communities, by introducing the mycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi. Mycoforestry is considered a type of permaculture [ 1 ] and can be implemented as a beneficial component of an agroforestry system.
Fungi have appeared, too, from time to time, in literature and art. Fungi create harm by spoiling food, destroying timber, and by causing diseases of crops, livestock, and humans. Fungi, mainly moulds like Penicillium and Aspergillus, spoil many stored foods. Fungi cause the majority of plant diseases, which in turn cause serious economic losses.
Rust fungi are highly specialized plant pathogens with several unique features. Taken as a group, rust fungi are diverse and affect many kinds of plants. However, each species has a range of hosts and cannot be transmitted to non-host plants. In addition, most rust fungi cannot be grown easily in pure culture.
Some chemical defenses once thought to be produced by the plant have since been shown to be synthesized by endophytic fungi. The chemical basis of insect resistance in endophyte-plant defense mutualisms has been most extensively studied in the perennial ryegrass and three major classes of secondary metabolites are found: indole diterpenes, ergot alkaloids and peramine.
An important nitrogen fixing symbiosis is that between Rhizobium and leguminous plants. [4] Rhizobium have been shown to contribute upwards of 300 kg N/ha/year in different leguminous plants, and their application to agricultural crops has been shown to increase crop height, seed germination, and nitrogen content within the plant. [ 5 ]
Cultivating fungi can yield foods (which include mostly mushrooms), medicine, construction materials and other products. A mushroom farm is involved in the business of growing fungi. The word is also commonly used to refer to the practice of cultivation of fungi by animals such as leafcutter ants, termites, ambrosia beetles, and marsh periwinkles.
The mycorrhizal symbiosis between plants and fungi is fundamental to terrestrial ecosystems, with evolutionary origins before the colonization of land by plants. [17] In the mycorrhizal symbiosis, a plant and a fungus become physically linked to one another and establish an exchange of resources between one another.