Fungal and Protist Disease

• Fungi are eukaryotic organisms that can be either unicellular or multicellular, with examples including yeast and mushrooms.
• Fungi can cause diseases such as rose black spot, which causes purple or black spots to form on the leaves of plants, especially roses.
• The fungus does more and more damage to the leaves, they can start to turn yellow and drop off, reducing the plant's ability to photosynthesize and so they don't grow so well.
• Rose black spot fungus normally spreads by being transported either in the water or by the wind, and can be treated by chopping off all of the infected leaves or spraying the plant with fungicides which kill any fungus.
• Protists are also eukaryotes and can be either single or multi-celled organisms, with the majority being single-celled or unicellular.
• Some protists are classified as parasites, which means they live on or inside other organisms and survive at that other organisms expense.
• Protists are often transported by vectors, which are other organisms like insects that transport the protists between different host organisms.
• Malaria is caused by a parasitic protist which needs a host such as a human or other animal to survive, and is transported between hosts by mosquitoes.
• When a mosquito feeds on an animal that's already been infected and sucks out some blood, it can also suck up some of those malaria parasites.
• When another healthy animal comes along like a person and the mosquito feeds on that animal, the parasites get transferred, at which point we would say that the protists have spread to a new host.
• Humans catching malaria can cause recurrent episodes of fever and headaches, and in some cases can even be fatal.
• The best way to prevent diseases like malaria is to stop the vectors from spreading the protests in the first place, for example by reducing the number of mosquitoes in the area by destroying their breeding sites or directly killing them with insecticides.
• Another option is to stop the vectors from feeding on us by using mosquito nets or mosquito repellents.