Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 2005 Songhu Road, Shanghai, 200438, China.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto-Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada.
New Phytol. 2019 Feb;221(3):1574-1584. doi: 10.1111/nph.15460. Epub 2018 Oct 16.
The effects of global change on semi-natural and agro-ecosystem functioning have been studied extensively. However, less well understood is how global change will influence fungal diseases, especially in a natural ecosystem. We use data from a 6-yr factorial experiment with warming (simulated using infrared heaters) and altered precipitation treatments in a natural Tibetan alpine meadow ecosystem, from which we tested global change effects on foliar fungal diseases at the population and community levels, and evaluated the importance of direct effects of the treatments and community-mediated (indirect) effects (through changes in plant community composition and competence) of global change on community pathogen load. At the population level, we found warming significantly increased fungal diseases for nine plant species. At the community level, we found that warming significantly increased pathogen load of entire host communities, whereas no significant effect of altered precipitation on community pathogen load was detected. We concluded that warming influences fungal disease prevalence more than precipitation does in a Tibetan alpine meadow. Moreover, our study provides new experimental evidence that increases in disease burden on some plant species and for entire host communities is primarily the direct effects of warming, rather than community-mediated (indirect) effects.
全球变化对半自然和农业生态系统功能的影响已经得到了广泛的研究。然而，人们对于全球变化将如何影响真菌病，尤其是在自然生态系统中，了解得还不够多。我们使用了来自一个为期 6 年的实验的数据，该实验采用了红外加热器模拟的增温和改变降水处理，在一个自然的西藏高山草甸生态系统中进行。我们在种群和群落水平上测试了全球变化对叶部真菌病的影响，并评估了处理的直接效应以及群落介导的（间接）效应（通过植物群落组成和竞争力的变化）对群落病原体负荷的重要性。在种群水平上，我们发现变暖显著增加了 9 种植物的真菌病。在群落水平上，我们发现变暖显著增加了整个宿主群落的病原体负荷，而改变降水对群落病原体负荷没有显著影响。我们的结论是，在西藏高山草甸中，变暖对真菌病流行的影响大于降水。此外，我们的研究提供了新的实验证据，表明一些植物物种和整个宿主群落的疾病负担增加主要是变暖的直接影响，而不是群落介导的（间接）影响。
