Fusarium graminearum — the fungus federal prosecutors say a University of Michigan scholar and her boyfriend attempted to smuggle into the U.S. — is a dangerous strain of a common fungus that can infect wheat, rice, oats and other cereal plants. It can cause devastating crop damage and potentially make infected grains dangerous to eat.

Federal prosecutors have charged two Chinese researchers with smuggling a crop-killing fungus into the U.S. last summer

The biological pathogen federal authorities accuse two Chinese nationals of smuggling into the U.S. was not likely an act of "agroterrorism," according to experts.