Plant disease epidemiology deals with diseases in plant
populations. During the past century, it has become a vibrant field
of science, achieving significant conceptual innovations with an
important impact on the management of plant diseases. Plant disease
epidemiology mobilises concepts and methods from ecology, genetics,
environmental physics, botany, and mathematics. It deals with
cultivated and non-cultivated plants in environments where human
activities may have had an impact. Now, plant disease epidemiology
faces important questions. Global climate is changing at a rapid
rate: will it render plant diseases more, or less, harmful to
man-made ecosystems? There is much debate on this issue, partly
because climate has sometimes very large effects on the local
environment of growing plant canopies, and because the physical
micro-environment so strongly influences plant diseases and their
consequences on ecosystem functioning and performance and the way
they are managed. Plant disease epidemiologists have a strong
scientific tradition in studying climate-pathogen-disease
relationships. Biodiversity is also of global concern. The decline
of global biodiversity that is currently taking place has been
referred to as the sixth great extinction process our planet has
experienced during its history, but this time, it is man-made.
Generations of plant pathologists, and especially, of plant disease
epidemiologists, have been dealing with biodiversity. It is from
this diversity that presumably the most potent instrument for
disease management has been developed by plant pathologists: host
plant resistance. Host plant diversity, and the disease resistance
genes it harbours, can be deployed over time and space, according
to epidemiological principles. Sustainable production and
protection systems also need to be devised which could exploit
scarcer resources sparingly, and if possible enhance the resource
base. Plant disease epidemiologists alone cannot provide answers to
such questions, but certainly could significantly contribute to
these new strategies. This book provides an overview of some of the
latest research in plant disease epidemiology from researchers at
the cutting edge of this important discipline.
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