Host plant utilization in insect attraction in the reproductive stage of rust fungi

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Rust fungi are obligate parasites on plants. Little is known in detail about how they use their host plants. They attract insects by secreting nectar and use them as vectors of their gametes in reproduction, which is quite similar to the function of flowers. I investigated how rust fungi use their host plants in this stage using chemical ecological, genetic and morphological approaches. Our results suggested that volatiles emitted from spermatogonia of the investigated species are not important in insect attraction, that CRABS CLAW, the gene which is expressed in the nectary developmental stage in host plants, is expressed around spermatogonia during the nectary developmental stage, and that nectar precursors are found in fungus cells. These results imply the possibility that host plants function in nectar secretion in rust fungus reproduction on plants.