Several leaf spotting or blotching fungal diseases occur on forest trees in Guilan province (N Iran). Some of them such as maple tar spot affect health of host trees severely, but many are of minor effect. This study was carried out to identify unknown and less known fungi causing leaf spot and leaf blotch diseases on broad leaf trees in this region. So far numerous fungi were collected. Four s...

Azo, anthroquinone and triphenylmethane dyes are the major classes of synthetic colourants, which are difficult to degrade and have received considerable attention. Congo red, a diazo dye, is considered as a xenobiotic compound, and is recalcitrant to biodegradative processes. Nevertheless, during the last few years it has been demonstrated that several fungi, under certain environmental condit...

A strain of the fungus Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin (Deuteromycota: Hyphomycetes) isolated from varroa mites, Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman (Acari: Varroidae), was used to treat honey bees, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), against varroa mites in southern France. Fungal treatment caused a significant increase in the percentage of infected varroa mites compared with cont...

Mycoviruses are viruses that infect fungi. The first mycovirus was reported in 1962 from the cultivated mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; the infected mushrooms developed malformed fruiting bodies, grew slowly, and matured early, resulting in serious yield losses [1]. Like viruses that infect animals and plants, mycoviruses require the living cells of other organisms to replicate. While sharing some...

In mutualisms, each interacting species obtains resources from its partner that it would obtain less efficiently if alone, and so derives a net fitness benefit. In exchange for shelter (domatia) and food, mutualistic plant-ants protect their host myrmecophytes from herbivores, encroaching vines and fungal pathogens. Although selective filters enable myrmecophytes to host those ant species most ...

The relationship between day-to-day changes in asthma severity and combined exposures to community air pollutants and aeroallergens remains to be clearly defined. We examined the effects of outdoor air pollutants, fungi, and pollen on asthma. Twenty-two asthmatics ages 9-46 years were followed for 8 weeks (9 May-3 July 1994) in a semirural Southern California community around the air inversion ...

A new Cercospora species, namely, C. neriicola Ershad on Nerium oleandercollected in Iran was described and illustrated. The new species was compared with C. nerii-indici, the other species on Nerium.

SUMMARY The mitosporic fungus Spilocaea oleagina is an obligate biotroph of olive (Olea europaea) causing a scab disease associated with leaf fall and substantial losses in production. Using differential display we have identified 162 cDNA fragments corresponding to transcripts that show altered abundance during the defence response of a resistant olive cultivar to S. oleagina. Detailed analyse...

Filamentous fungi are a large group of diverse and economically important microorganisms. Large-scale gene disruption strategies developed in budding yeast are not applicable to these organisms because of their larger genomes and lower rate of targeted integration (TI) during transformation. We developed transposon-arrayed gene knockouts (TAGKO) to discover genes and simultaneously create gene ...