Abstract
Plant pathogen traits, such as transmission mode and overwintering strategy, may have important effects on dispersal and persistence, and drive disease dynamics. Still, we lack insights into how life-history traits influence spatiotemporal disease dynamics. We adopted a multifaceted approach, combining experimental assays, theory and field surveys, to investigate whether information about two pathogen life-history traits - infectivity and overwintering strategy - can predict pathogen metapopulation dynamics in natural systems. For this, we focused on four fungal pathogens (two rust fungi, one chytrid fungus and one smut fungus) on the forest herb Anemone nemorosa. Pathogens infecting new plants mostly via spores (the chytrid and smut fungi) had higher patch occupancies and colonization rates than pathogens causing mainly systemic infections and overwintering in the rhizomes (the two rust fungi). Although the rust fungi more often occupied well-connected plant patches, the chytrid and smut fungi were equally or more common in isolated patches. Host patch size was positively related to patch occupancy and colonization rates for all pathogens. Predicting disease dynamics is crucial for understanding the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of host-pathogen interactions, and to prevent disease outbreaks. Our study shows that combining experiments, theory and field observations is a useful way to predict disease dynamics.
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Claims 4
Claim · model-written summary
Chytrid and smut fungi, which infect new plants mostly via spores, had higher patch occupancies and colonization rates than systemic rust fungi.
- Taxon
- Anemone nemorosa
.jpg?width=60)
Anemone nemorosae0 - Interactor
- chytrid and smut fungie1pathogen
- Outcome
- patch occupancies and colonization ratese1
- Direction
- highere1
- Comparator
- pathogens causing mainly systemic infectionse1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
.jpg?width=500)
Verbatim
e0“on the forest herb Anemone nemorosa”
e1“Pathogens infecting new plants mostly via spores (the chytrid and smut fungi) had higher patch occupancies and colonization rates than pathogens causing mainly systemic infections”
Claim · model-written summary
Rust fungi more often occupied well-connected plant patches.
- Taxon
- Anemone nemorosaAnemone nemorosae0
- Interactor
- rust fungie2pathogen
- Outcome
- well-connected plant patchese2
- Direction
- more oftene2
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“on the forest herb Anemone nemorosa”
e2“the rust fungi more often occupied well-connected plant patches”
Claim · model-written summary
Chytrid and smut fungi were equally or more common in isolated plant patches.
- Taxon
- Anemone nemorosaAnemone nemorosae0
- Interactor
- chytrid and smut fungie4pathogen
- Outcome
- common in isolated patchese4
- Direction
- equally or moree4
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“on the forest herb Anemone nemorosa”
e4“the chytrid and smut fungi were equally or more common in isolated patches”
Claim · model-written summary
Host patch size was positively related to patch occupancy and colonization rates for all pathogens.
- Taxon
- Anemone nemorosaAnemone nemorosae0
- Outcome
- patch occupancy and colonization ratese3
- Direction
- positivelye3
- Comparator
- Host patch sizee3
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“on the forest herb Anemone nemorosa”
e3“Host patch size was positively related to patch occupancy and colonization rates for all pathogens”