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Ecology and Epidemiology

Parasite Interaction with Sporulation by Cronartium quercuum f. sp. fusiforme on Loblolly and Slash Pine. E. G. Kuhlman, Plant pathologist, USDA Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709; Phytopathology 71:348-350. Accepted for publication 8 August 1980. This article is in the public domain and not copyrightable. It may be freely reprinted with customary crediting of the source. The American Phytopathological Society, 1981. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-71-348.

Scytalidium uredinicola was the most common parasite of the aecial stage of Cronartium quercuum f. sp. fusiforme in three pine plantations during four seasons. This mycoparasite was more frequently associated with aeciospores of the rust on loblolly pine in two North Carolina plantations than on slash pine in a South Carolina plantation. Tuberculina maxima was present on galls on loblolly pine during both aecial and spermatial sporulation, but it was not present on galls on slash pine. In the spring. T. maxima occurred several weeks before aecia appeared and remained independent of the rust aecia. However, galls parasitized by T. maxima one spring less commonly had aecia the following spring than did galls without T. maxima. Parasitism by T. maxima was less frequent in the fall and had no effect on aecial sporulation the following spring. Galls with aecia alone, aecia with S. uredinicola, or neither of these were most likely to have the same sporulation type the following spring. Adult Epuraea lengi, a nitidulidid beetle, commonly fed on both aecial and spermatial tissue. Larvae of E. lengi fed on aeciospores and larvae of an unidentified diptera fed on spermatia.