U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory, Fort Pierce, Florida 34945, USA.
Annu Rev Phytopathol. 2013;51:453-72. doi: 10.1146/annurev-phyto-081211-173017. Epub 2013 May 31.
Scale is an important but somewhat neglected subject in plant pathology. Scale serves as an abstract concept, providing a framework for organizing observations and theoretical models, and plays a functional role in the organization of ecological communities and physical processes. Rich methodological resources are available to plant pathologists interested in considering either or both aspects of scale in their research. We summarize important concepts in both areas of the literature, particularly as they apply to the spatial pattern of plant disease, and highlight some new results that emphasize the importance of scaling on the emergence of different types of probability distribution in empirical observation. We also highlight the important links between heterogeneity and scale, which are of central importance in plant disease epidemiology and the analysis of spatial pattern. We consider statistical approaches that are available, where actual physical scale is known, and for more conceptual research on hierarchies, where scale plays a more abstract role, particularly for field-based research. For the latter, we highlight methods that plant pathologists could consider to account for the effect of scale in the design of field studies.
尺度是植物病理学中一个重要但有些被忽视的主题。尺度作为一个抽象概念，为组织观察和理论模型提供了框架，并在生态群落和物理过程的组织中发挥功能作用。对尺度的两个方面（无论是其中一个还是两个方面）都感兴趣的植物病理学家可以利用丰富的方法资源。我们总结了文献中这两个领域的重要概念，特别是它们在植物病害空间格局中的应用，并强调了一些新的结果，这些结果强调了尺度在经验观察中不同类型概率分布出现的重要性。我们还强调了异质性和尺度之间的重要联系，这在植物病害流行病学和空间格局分析中至关重要。我们考虑了在已知实际物理尺度的情况下可用的统计方法，以及在尺度扮演更抽象角色的层次结构的更具概念性的研究中，特别是对于基于现场的研究。对于后者，我们强调了植物病理学家可以考虑在现场研究设计中考虑尺度效应的方法。
