Journal
VIRUS RESEARCH
Volume 241, Issue -, Pages 68-76Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2017.05.015
Keywords
Biodiversity; Infection risk; Disease risk; Plant-virus co-evolution; Virulence
Categories
Funding
- Fundacion BBVA, Spain [BIOCON05/101]
- Plan Estatal de I + D + I, Spain [BFU2015-60418-R]
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Understanding host-pathogen interactions requires analyses to address the multiplicity of scales in heterogeneous landscapes. Anthropogenic influence on plant communities, especially cultivation, is a major cause of environmental heterogeneity. We have approached the analysis of how environmental heterogeneity determines plant-virus interactions by studying virus infection in a wild plant currently undergoing incipient domestication, the wild pepper or chiltepin, across its geographical range in Mexico. We have shown previously that anthropogenic disturbance is associated with higher infection and disease risk, and with disrupted patterns of host and virus genetic spatial structure. We now show that anthropogenic factors, species richness, host genetic diversity and density in communities supporting chiltepin differentially affect infection risk according to the virus analysed. We also show that in addition to these factors, a broad range of abiotic and biotic variables meaningful to continental scales, have an important role on the risk of infection depending on the virus. Last, we show that natural virus infection of chiltepin plants in wild communities results in decreased survival and fecundity, hence negatively affecting fitness. This important finding paves the way for future studies on plant-virus co-evolution.
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