Word: toxins
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...vastatrix's deadly advance has given growers throughout Latin America a bad case of coffee nerves. Once the microscopic spores of the fungus settle on a susceptible plant, they send thin, tubular filaments into the leaf. These cause structural damage and also release a toxin that disrupts the life-giving process of photosynthesis. As the sickly patches spread, other leaves catch the infection, and within a year or two the entire plant dies...
Presumably, DDT reaches the ground on falling leaves, and earthworms surfacing at night accumulate the toxin when they feed. DDT then passes up the food chain to the robins...