Life Cycle
All rusts are obligate parasites, meaning that they require a living host to complete their life cycle. They generally do not kill the host plant but can severely reduce growth and yield. Cereal crops can be devastated in one season and trees that get infected in the main stem within the first five years, invariably die.
Rust fungi can also be categorized by their life cycle. Heteroecious rust fungi require two unrelated hosts to complete their life cycle, with the primary host being infected by aeciospores and the alternate host being infected with basidiospores. This can be contrasted with an autoecious fungus which can complete its life cycle on a single host species.
Read more about this topic: Rust (fungus)
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or cycle:
“For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“The lifelong process of caregiving, is the ultimate link between caregivers of all ages. You and I are not just in a phase we will outgrow. This is life—birth, death, and everything in between.... The care continuum is the cycle of life turning full circle in each of our lives. And what we learn when we spoon-feed our babies will echo in our ears as we feed our parents. The point is not to be done. The point is to be ready to do again.”
—Paula C. Lowe (20th century)