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Emerging Infectious Diseases of Plants Caused by Extreme Weather Events and "Pathogen Pollution" |
Florida Hurricanes May Have Spread Plant Disease |
PALISADES, NEW YORK, Sep. 28 -/E-Wire/--
The term "emerging infectious diseases" (EIDs) typically makes people think of HIV/AIDS, Ebola, or SARS. However, in a paper released today in the leading ecology journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, an international team of researchers led by Wildlife Trust's Consortium for Conservation Medicine has highlighted a series of emerging plant diseases that are devastating crops globally, and impacting humans through agricultural and economic loss.
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Nikkita Patel, Program Officer for the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and lead researcher for the group, comments, "The recent spate of extreme weather events in Florida and elsewhere highlights the need to protect crops and wild plants from invasive pathogens that exploit the damaged environments following hurricanes." She notes that the reason these diseases are emerging is because we are changing the environment at such a rapid rate. Ms. Patel adds, "These highly evolved diseases are being given the chance of spreading into new regions, wiping out crops and wild plants as they go. Unless we radically change our approach and provide proper surveillance and control, these diseases have the potential to undermine the basis for our food security in the future."
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The research team analyzed broad trends in emerging plant diseases and showed that:
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· Extreme weather events, such as the hurricanes that hit Florida, are one of the leading causes of plant EIDs. This is due to the sensitivity of plants to fluctuations in moisture levels and the responses of plant pathogens to weather events. With projections that climate change will increase extreme weather events, disease-related die-offs will likely increase with time.
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· A series of key wild plant species are at risk of extinction due to emerging diseases. For example, the endangered cedar tree (Torreya taxifolia) is only found over a 154 square mile area of the Florida panhandle and is gradually being wiped out by a fungal disease and extreme weather events. This unique tree species once had a population of over 500,000, but is now reduced to only 1,500.
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· The underlying cause of most plant EIDs is the anthropogenic introduction of pathogens, or "pathogen pollution." This is related to changes in land use, global warming, and trade in plants and plant products.
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· Technological advances in agriculture are leaving global crops open to disease emergence. For example, in many developing countries the availability of year-round irrigation and declining market prices for staple crops has promoted increased intensity and acreage of non-traditional crop plants, thus promoting disease emergence.
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· The international trade in seeds is an estimated US $40-80 billion-per-year industry. Over 2,400 microorganisms are known to occur in seeds of 383 genera of plants. It is estimated that up to one-third of plant viruses are seed-borne. Improved surveillance and control of disease in this trade is urgently needed.
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According to Peter Daszak, Executive Director of Wildlife Trust's Consortium for Conservation Medicine, "Not only are plant EIDs wiping out crops, they're threatening the biodiversity of plant life on our planet. With diseases like sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum) marching through our forests, we have an unprecedented risk for loss of ecosystems."
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The team's results are part of a new approach to emerging diseases that stresses the need for predicting when and how diseases will emerge and dealing with them before they cause significant outbreaks. "If we can predict where diseases will occur, we'll be better equipped to handle them once they emerge," observed Mary Pearl, President of Wildlife Trust.
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SOURCE ARTICLE
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(Available as a PDF from www.conservationmedicine.org):
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Pamela K. Anderson, Andrew A. Cunningham, Nikkita G. Patel, Francisco J. Morales, Paul R. Epstein and Peter Daszak. 2004. Emerging infectious diseases of plants: pathogen pollution, climate change and agrotechnology drivers. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 19(10):535-544.
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About The Consortium for Conservation Medicine The Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM) is a unique collaborative institution that strives to understand the link between anthropogenic environmental change, health of all species, including humans, and the conservation of biodiversity. More information can be found on their website, www.conservationmedicine.org.
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About Wildlife Trust Wildlife Trust is an international organization dedicated to innovative conservation science and conservation medicine, linking ecology and human health in the New York region and around the world. Wildlife Trust trains and supports a network of local scientists in over twenty countries in their efforts to save endangered species and their habitats and to protect the health of ecosystems that are vital to life on Earth. More information can be found on their website, www.wildlifetrust.org.
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