Mikko Amanda, Villegas Jose Antonio, Svensson Daniel, Karlsson Edvin, Esseen Per-Anders, Albrectsen Benedicte Riber, Lundin Ola, Forsman Mats, Berlin Anna, Stenberg Per
Umeå Plant Science Centre, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
iScience. 2025 Jun 16;28(7):112912. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112912. eCollection 2025 Jul 18.
Crop pests and diseases increasingly challenge the global food system. To prepare for and detect outbreaks, surveillance plays an important role. Traditional monitoring methods are often organism-specific, making large-scale monitoring of crop pathogens and pests impractical. We here investigate the potential for using shotgun sequencing of airborne eDNA for large-scale surveillance of crop pathogens and pests. We show that it is possible to detect DNA from all types of organisms in air, and that DNA can be classified down to species level. However, the accuracy of the identification is highly dependent on the quality of reference genomes of both the pathogens or pests, and their close relatives present in the region. Finally, we find that observed degree of crop damages correlate with amount of DNA from crop pathogens and pests in air, showing the promise of this approach for surveillance of all types of crop pathogens and pests.
农作物病虫害对全球粮食系统构成了越来越大的挑战。为了预防和检测病虫害爆发，监测起着重要作用。传统的监测方法通常针对特定生物体，使得对作物病原体和害虫进行大规模监测不切实际。我们在此研究利用空气中环境DNA的鸟枪法测序进行作物病原体和害虫大规模监测的潜力。我们表明，可以检测空气中所有类型生物体的DNA，并且DNA可以分类到物种水平。然而，识别的准确性高度依赖于病原体或害虫及其在该地区的近缘物种的参考基因组质量。最后，我们发现观察到的作物受损程度与空气中作物病原体和害虫的DNA数量相关，这表明这种方法在监测所有类型的作物病原体和害虫方面具有前景。
