Dispersal of Plant Pathogens
Globalisation and pathogen transport – from plants to continents
Food, fiber and other plant-based materials are a key part of our daily lifestyle, but this plant-based production is often plagued by plant diseases. The knowledge obtained by studying plant diseases is critical to be able to reduce the losses due to plant pathogens.
Understanding how the various pathogen propagules are transported is a key factor in the study of plant disease epidemiology. Some pathogens have been able to move large (intercontinental) distances without the assistance of man. These have caused problems in both the developing world (for example the Ug99 race of Puccinia graminis causing wheat stem rust) as well as in the developed world (Phakopsora pachyrhizi causing soybean rust has spread from Asia to Africa, then to South America, and more recently to North America).
Even the understanding of pathogen transport on a smaller scale can have implications on disease control. How the size and pattern of agricultural production units affects disease development can be a factor in a production system that seeks to minimize the use of chemicals.
In this course, the students will become acquainted with some of the subjects that are related to plant pathogen dispersal and see their interrelationships. The students will learn how these factors can affect development of disease in populations with a variety of hands-on methods, including case studies, computer simulations and statistics packages.
The final goal is that the students obtain a holistic view of the processes involved in pathogen transport, and how they affect development of disease in different pathosystems. At the completion of this course, the student, if he or she so desires, would be able to used some of these methods in his or her own research.
This application is part of a series in plant pathology courses in the Nordic countries. The titles of the next three courses in the series:
Denmark, 2010: Genetics of plant-pathogen interactions (Responsible teacher Professor David Collinge)
Norway, 2011: Disease cycles; from survival to epidemics, and trophic strategies (Responsible teacher Professor Anne Marte Tronsmo)
Finland, 2012: Innate immunity and plant resistance (Responsible teacher Professor Jari Valkonen)
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