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Anthropogenic activities have dramatically altered the global nitrogen (N) cycle. Atmospheric N deposition, primarily from combustion of biomass and fossil fuels, has caused ...acidification of precipitation and freshwater, and triggered intense research into ecosystem responses to this pollutant. Experimental simulations of N deposition have been the main scientific tool to understand ecosystem responses, revealing dramatic impacts on soil microbes, plants, and higher trophic levels. However, comparison of the experimental treatments applied in the vast majority of studies with observational and modelled N deposition reveals a wide gulf between research and reality. While the majority of experimental treatments exceed 100 kg N ha−1 y−1, global median land surface deposition rates are around 1 kg N ha−1 y−1 and only exceed 10 kg N ha−1 y−1 in certain regions, primarily in industrialized areas of Europe and Asia and particularly in forests. Experimental N deposition treatments are in fact similar to mineral fertilizer application rates in agriculture. Some ecological guilds, such as saprotrophic fungi, are highly sensitive to N and respond differently to low and high N availability. In addition, very high levels of N application cause changes in soil chemistry, such as acidification, meaning that unrealistic experimental treatments are unlikely to reveal true ecosystem responses to N. Hence, despite decades of research, past experiments can tell us little about how the biosphere has responded to anthropogenic N deposition. A new approach is required to improve our understanding of this important phenomenon. First, characterization of N response functions using observed N deposition gradients. Second, application of experimental N addition gradients at realistic levels over long periods to detect cumulative effects. Third, application of non-linear meta-regressions to detect non-linear responses in meta-analyses of experimental studies.
Climate change has significantly altered species distributions in the wild and has the potential to affect the interactions between pests and diseases and their human, animal and plant hosts. While ...several studies have projected changes in disease distributions in the future, responses to historical climate change are poorly understood. Such analyses are required to dissect the relative contributions of climate change, host availability and dispersal to the emergence of pests and diseases. Here, we model the influence of climate change on the most damaging disease of a major tropical food plant, Black Sigatoka disease of banana. Black Sigatoka emerged from Asia in the late twentieth Century and has recently completed its invasion of Latin American and Caribbean banana-growing areas. We parametrize an infection model with published experimental data and drive the model with hourly microclimate data from a global climate reanalysis dataset. We define infection risk as the sum of the number of modelled hourly spore cohorts that infect a leaf over a time interval. The model shows that infection risk has increased by a median of 44.2% across banana-growing areas of Latin America and the Caribbean since the 1960s, due to increasing canopy wetness and improving temperature conditions for the pathogen. Thus, while increasing banana production and global trade have probably facilitated Black Sigatoka establishment and spread, climate change has made the region increasingly conducive for plant infection. This article is part of the theme issue 'Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: approaches and important themes'. This issue is linked with the subsequent theme issue 'Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants: epidemic forecasting and control'.
global spread of crop pests and pathogens Bebber, Daniel P; Holmes, Timothy; Gurr, Sarah J
Global ecology and biogeography,
December 2014, Letnik:
23, Številka:
12
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
AIM: To describe the patterns and trends in the spread of crop pests and pathogens around the world, and determine the socioeconomic, environmental and biological factors underlying the rate and ...degree of redistribution of crop‐destroying organisms. LOCATION: Global. METHODS: Current country‐ and state‐level distributions of 1901 pests and pathogens and historical observation dates for 424 species were compared with potential distributions based upon distributions of host crops. The degree of ‘saturation’, i.e. the fraction of the potential distribution occupied, was related to pest type, host range, crop production, climate and socioeconomic variables using linear models. RESULTS: More than one‐tenth of all pests have reached more than half the countries that grow their hosts. If current trends continue, many important crop‐producing countries will be fully saturated with pests by the middle of the century. While dispersal increases with host range overall, fungi have the narrowest host range but are the most widely dispersed group. The global dispersal of some pests has been rapid, but pest assemblages remain strongly regionalized and follow the distributions of their hosts. Pest assemblages are significantly correlated with socioeconomics, climate and latitude. Tropical staple crops, with restricted latitudinal ranges, tend to be more saturated with pests and pathogens than temperate staples with broad latitudinal ranges. We list the pests likely to be the most invasive in coming years. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Despite ongoing dispersal of crop pests and pathogens, the degree of biotic homogenization of the globe remains moderate and regionally constrained, but is growing. Fungal pathogens lead the global invasion of agriculture, despite their more restricted host range. Climate change is likely to influence future distributions. Improved surveillance would reveal greater levels of invasion, particularly in developing countries.
Tropical deforestation is responsible for around one tenth of total anthropogenic carbon emissions, and tropical protected areas (PAs) that reduce deforestation can therefore play an important role ...in mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services. While the effectiveness of PAs in reducing deforestation has been estimated, the impact on global carbon emissions remains unquantified. Here we show that tropical PAs overall reduced deforestation carbon emissions by 4.88 Pg, or around 29%, between 2000 and 2012, when compared to expected rates of deforestation controlling for spatial variation in deforestation pressure. The largest contribution was from the tropical Americas (368.8 GgC y
), followed by Asia (25.0 GgC y
) and Africa (12.7 GgC y
). Variation in PA effectiveness is largely driven by local factors affecting individual PAs, rather than designations assigned by governments.
Plant disease outbreaks are increasing and threaten food security for the vulnerable in many areas of the world. Now a global human pandemic is threatening the health of millions on our planet. A ...stable, nutritious food supply will be needed to lift people out of poverty and improve health outcomes. Plant diseases, both endemic and recently emerging, are spreading and exacerbated by climate change, transmission with global food trade networks, pathogen spillover, and evolution of new pathogen lineages. In order to tackle these grand challenges, a new set of tools that include disease surveillance and improved detection technologies including pathogen sensors and predictive modeling and data analytics are needed to prevent future outbreaks. Herein, we describe an integrated research agenda that could help mitigate future plant disease pandemics.
The ecological niche can be thought of as a volume in multidimensional space, where each dimension describes an abiotic condition or biotic resource required by a species. The shape, size, and ...evolution of this volume strongly determine interactions among species and influence their current and potential geographical distributions, but the geometry of niches is poorly understood. Here, we analyse temperature response functions and host plant ranges for hundreds of potentially destructive plant-associated fungi and oomycetes. We demonstrate that niche specialization is uncorrelated on abiotic (i.e. temperature response) and biotic (i.e. host range) axes, that host interactions restrict fundamental niche breadth to form the realized niche, and that both abiotic and biotic niches show limited phylogenetic constraint. The ecological terms 'generalist' and 'specialist' therefore do not apply to these microbes, as specialization evolves independently on different niche axes. This adaptability makes plant pathogens a formidable threat to agriculture and forestry.
Climate change and plant pathogens Raza, Muhammad M; Bebber, Daniel P
Current opinion in microbiology,
December 2022, 2022-12-00, Letnik:
70
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Global food security is threatened by climate change, both directly through responses of crop physiology and productivity, and indirectly through responses of plant-associated microbiota, including ...plant pathogens. While the interactions between host plants, pathogens and environmental drivers can be complex, recent research is beginning to indicate certain overall patterns in how plant diseases will affect crop production in future. Here, we review the results of three methodological approaches: large-scale observational studies, process-based disease models and experimental comparisons of pathosystems under current and future conditions. We find that observational studies have tended to identify rising temperatures as the primary driver of disease impact. Process-based models suggest that rising temperatures will lead to latitudinal shifts in disease pressure, but drying conditions could mitigate disease risk. Experimental studies suggest that rising atmospheric CO2 will exacerbate disease impacts. Plant diseases may therefore counteract any crop yield increases due to climate change.
•Climate change is altering the distributions and impacts of plant pests and diseases.•Observational data, predictive models and experimental manipulations are used to understand climate change impacts.•Observational studies show that temperature is the main driver of distributions and impacts.•Predictive models suggest that disease risk will track crop yields as climate changes.•Experimental studies show that elevated CO2 often exacerbates temperature effects on disease.
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