Plant pathogen responses to Late Pleistocene and Holocene climate change in the central Atacama Desert, Chile.

ABSTRACT: Future climate change has the potential to alter the distribution and prevalence of plant pathogens, which may have significant implications for both agricultural crops and natural plant communities. However, there are few long-term datasets against which modelled predictions of pathogen responses to climate change can be tested. Here, we use 18S metabarcoding of 28 rodent middens (solidified deposits of rodent coprolites and nesting material) from the Central Atacama, spanning the last ca. 49 ka, to provide the first long-term late Quaternary record of change in plant pathogen communities in response to changing climate. Plant pathogen richness was significantly greater in middens deposited during the Central Andean Pluvial Event (CAPE); a period of increased precipitation between 17.5-8.

SUBMITTER: Wood JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6249261 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature