Nonlinear shifts in infectious rust disease due to climate change.

ABSTRACT: Range shifts of infectious plant disease are expected under climate change. As plant diseases move, emergent abiotic-biotic interactions are predicted to modify their distributions, leading to unexpected changes in disease risk. Evidence of these complex range shifts due to climate change, however, remains largely speculative. Here, we combine a long-term study of the infectious tree disease, white pine blister rust, with a six-year field assessment of drought-disease interactions in the southern Sierra Nevada. We find that climate change between 1996 and 2016 moved the climate optimum of the disease into higher elevations. The nonlinear climate change-disease relationship contributed to an estimated 5.5 (4.4-6.6) percentage points (p.p.) decline in disease prevalence in arid regions and a

SUBMITTER: Dudney J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8385051 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature