• Energy Research

The response of plant disease to weather variables such as temperature and precipitation is well known and has been the basis for disease forecasting models used in decision-making by farmers and policy makers. Thus, plant disease risk can readily shift under climate change. Predicting changes in risk under climate change is complicated by the many biological interactions that result in disease. For example, some plant diseases occur when the phenology of plant and pathogen are aligned, in the case of Fusarium head blight so that spores are ready to infect during wheat flowering. There are numerous examples of experiments involving simulated climate change that have shown changes in disease risk. Finding indicators of climate change effects on disease in real agricultural or natural systems is more challenging, because of the correlative nature of the observations and the potential for many other factors to influence disease, such as changes in host abundance. Assessments of global disease databases suggest some pathogen range shifts consistent with predicted outcomes for climate change. There are also several cases of emerging tree diseases in which climate change has likely played a role.

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.

Abstract Research in the effects of climate change on plant disease continues to be limited, but some striking progress has been made. At the genomic level, advances in technologies for the high-throughput analysis of gene expression have made it possible to begin discriminating responses to different biotic and abiotic stressors and potential trade-offs in responses. At the scale of the individual plant, enough experiments have been performed to begin synthesizing the effects of climate variables on infection rates, though pathosystem-specific characteristics make synthesis challenging. Models of plant disease have now been developed to incorporate more sophisticated climate predictions. At the population level, the adaptive potential of plant and pathogen populations may prove to be one of the most important predictors of the magnitude of climate change effects. Ecosystem ecologists are now addressing the role of plant disease in ecosystem processes and the challenge of scaling up from individual infection probabilities to epidemics and broader impacts.

Plant pathology has developed a wide range of concepts and tools for improving plant disease management, including models for understanding and responding to new risks from climate change. Most of these tools can be improved using new advances in artificial intelligence (AI), such as machine learning to integrate massive data sets in predictive models. There is the potential to develop automated analyses of risk that alert decision-makers, from farm managers to national plant protection organizations, to the likely need for action and provide decision support for targeting responses. We review machine-learning applications in plant pathology and synthesize ideas for the next steps to make the most of these tools in digital agriculture. Global projects, such as the proposed global surveillance system for plant disease, will be strengthened by the integration of the wide range of new data, including data from tools like remote sensors, that are used to evaluate the risk ofplant disease. There is exciting potential for the use of AI to strengthen global capacity building as well, from image analysis for disease diagnostics and associated management recommendations on farmers’ phones to future training methodologies for plant pathologists that are customized in real-time for management needs in response to the current risks. International cooperation in integrating data and models will help develop the most effective responses to new challenges from climate change.

Abstract The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects rising levels of greenhouse gas and global temperature. The well-known dependence of plant diseases on weather has long been exploited for predicting epidemics and to time applications of control measures for tactical disease management. Fingerprints of inter-annual climatic variation on pathogens have recently been shown in literature linking pathogen abundance to atmospheric composition. Past reviews have dealt with impacts of changing atmospheric composition and climate on diseases, regional or country-wide assessments of climate change impacts and impacts on specific disease/pathogen or pathogen groups. All agree on paucity of knowledge prompting a need to generate new empirical data on host-pathogen biology under a changing climate. Focused on experimental research, the purpose of this review is to summarize published and unpublished studies on plant pathogens and diseases in free-air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) facilities and open top chambers and other current non-FACE research to offer a summary of future research needs and opportunities. Critical review of recent literature on the influence of elevated CO 2 and O 3 on agriculture and forestry species forms a major part of the treatise. Summaries of unpublished or ongoing experimental research on plant pathogens from FACE studies are included as a catalogue of work in this neglected area. The catalogue and knowledge gaps are intended as a resource for workers initiating research in this area as well as the general scientific community grappling with the design and scope of next generation of FACE facilities.

Disaster plant pathology addresses how natural and human-driven disasters impact plant diseases and the requirements for smart management solutions. Local to global drivers of plant disease change in response to disasters, often creating environments more conducive to plant disease. Most disasters have indirect effects on plant health through factors such as disrupted supply chains and damaged infrastructure. There is also the potential for direct effects from disasters, such as pathogen or vector dispersal due to floods, hurricanes, and human migration driven by war. Pulse stressors such as hurricanes and war require rapid responses, whereas press stressors such as climate change leave more time for management adaptation but may ultimately cause broader challenges. Smart solutions for the effects of disasters can be deployed through digital agriculture and decision support systems supporting disaster preparedness and optimized humanitarian aid across scales. Here, we use the disaster plant pathology framework to synthesize the effects of disasters in plant pathology and outline solutions to maintain food security and plant health in catastrophic scenarios. We recommend actions for improving food security before and following disasters, including (i) strengthening regional and global cooperation, (ii) capacity building for rapid implementation of new technologies, (iii) effective clean seed systems that can act quickly to replace seed lost in disasters, (iv) resilient biosecurity infrastructure and risk assessment ready for rapid implementation, and (v) decision support systems that can adapt rapidly to unexpected scenarios. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0 International license .

Abstract Climate has an important effect on plant disease and the probability of plant pathogen invasions, through effects on hosts and pathogen vectors as well as on the pathogens themselves. Aerially dispersed pathogens are an important group of plant pathogens, and their dispersal and invasion may be modified by changes in wind patterns. Pathogens vectored by arthropods may be affected by weather impacts on their vectors, often through the filter of vector behaviour. Soilborne pathogens have more challenges to rapid invasion, but human transport can introduce them quickly into novel settings. For pathogens, variability within a species may be of great importance, and many important pathogen invasions are invasions of new genotypes of ubiquitous pathogen species. The connectivity of a landscape for pathogen movement is determined by the spatial distribution of host, pathogen and environmental conditions, and connectivity may also be affected by climate change. Therefore, when there is a new invasion, it is often challenging to evaluate which of these factors was limiting prior to invasion. Most economically important pathogen invasions are influenced strongly by human decision making. Adaptation strategies are needed both to address increased disease risk and to manage pathogen species and important subpopulations before they are introduced and established.

Climate change has a number of observed, anticipated, or possible consequences on crop health worldwide. Global change, on the other hand, incorporates a number of drivers of change, including global population increase, natural resource evolution, and supply–demand shifts in markets, from local to global. Global and climate changes interact in their effects on global ecosystems. Identifying and quantifying the impacts of global and climate changes on plant diseases is complex. A number of nonlinear relationships, such as the injury (epidemic)–damage (crop loss) relationship, are superimposed on the interplay among the three summits of the disease triangle (host, pathogen, environment). Work on a range of pathosystems involving rice, peanut, wheat, and coffee has shown the direct linkage and feedback between production situations and crop health. Global and climate changes influence the effects of system components on crop health. The combined effects of global and climate changes on diseases vary from one pathosystem to another within the tetrahedron framework (humans, pathogens, crops, environment) where human beings, from individual farmers to consumers to entire societies, interact with hosts, pathogens, and the environment. This article highlights international phytopathological research addressing the effects of global and climate changes on plant diseases in a range of crops and pathosystems.