Sorry to all those Monkeys out there , but this sad news was bought to my attention today..
What can us Humans do to save the Banana.. Any suggestions from budding scientists out there..
No more Banana cake..or Bananas in a Sundae
Bananas could be extinct in five years because of a fast-advancing disease compound.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sc...5eea1d3dcd0a3b
According to plant pathologist Ioannis Stergiopoulos, a fast-advancing disease compound, known as the Sigatoka complex, could be a lethal threat to the world’s banana supply.
The Sigatoka complex is made up of three fungal diseases — yellow Sigatoka, eumusae leaf spot and black Sigatoka.
Of the three, black Sigatoka poses the greatest risk to the 100 million tonnes of bananas grown annually in almost 120 countries.
To understand how the fungi attack, Mr Stergiopoulos sequenced the genomes of eumusae leaf spot and black Sigatoka, and then compared results with the previously sequenced yellow Sigatoka genome.
What he found was the three fungal diseases not only shut down the immune system of the banana tree, but the metabolism of the fungi also adapted to match that of the host plant.
This means the fungi can produce enzymes to break down the plant’s cell walls to feed on its sugars and other carbohydrates.
“We have demonstrated that two of the three most serious banana fungal diseases have become more virulent by increasing their ability to manipulate the banana’s metabolic path ways and make use of its nutrients,” he toldDigg.
“This parallel change in metabolism of the pathogen and the host plant has been overlooked until now and may represent a ‘molecular fingerprint’ of the adaptation process.
“It is really a wake-up call to the research community to look at similar mechanisms between pathogens and their plant hosts.”