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Plant Sciences

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

Fungi

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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Spore Dispersal Of Slime Molds And Higher Fungi Via Animal Vectors, Courtney Trimble May 2021

Spore Dispersal Of Slime Molds And Higher Fungi Via Animal Vectors, Courtney Trimble

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Myxomycetes and dictyostelids are Amoebozoans that are cosmopolitan inhabitants of a variety of habitats, particularly forest environments. Both groups reproduce using spores which are primarily dispersed via wind in myxomycetes but this characteristic poses a problem for dictyostelids. The spores of dictyostelids are incased in a mucilaginous matrix that makes wind ineffective except in exceptional cases. It has been suggested that animals such as birds may play an important yet understudied role in the dispersal of these organisms. This study investigated how animals could potentially serve as vectors for spore dispersal of dictyostelids and myxomycetes with some limited data obtained …


Dissecting The Cellular Control Of Septin Organization In A Global Cereal Killer, Nawaraj Dulal Jul 2020

Dissecting The Cellular Control Of Septin Organization In A Global Cereal Killer, Nawaraj Dulal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rice blast disease, caused by the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, destroys sufficient rice each year to feed 60 million people, and is a serious threat to global food security. A wheat-adapted lineage of M. oryzae now poses threat to global wheat production. Rice blast disease is currently controlled using limited fungicides, and the emergence of fungicide resistance within M. oryzae populations is a growing concern. There is a pressing need to identify new classes of fungicides to control the disease, which requires better understanding of the basic biology of the pathogen. To establish disease, M. oryzae forms a specialized dome …