Weeds, as ancillary hosts, pose disproportionate risk for virulent pathogen transfer to crops.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The outcome of the arms race between hosts and pathogens depends heavily on the interactions between their genetic diversity, population size and transmission ability. Theory predicts that genetically diverse hosts will select for higher virulence and more diverse pathogens than hosts with low genetic diversity. Cultivated hosts typically have lower genetic diversity and thus small effective population sizes, but can potentially harbour large pathogen population sizes. On the other hand, hosts, such as weeds, which are genetically more diverse and thus have larger effective population sizes, usually harbour smaller pathogen population sizes. Large pathogen population sizes may lead to more opportunities for mutation and hence more diverse pathogens. Here we test the pred

SUBMITTER: Linde CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4866072 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature