4.5 Article

Plant community-mediated effects of grazing on plant diseases

期刊

OECOLOGIA
卷 199, 期 4, 页码 897-905

出版社

SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00442-022-05223-7

关键词

Biodiversity; Disease; Pathogen; Herbivore; Yak

类别

资金

  1. National Key Research and Development Program of China [2017YFC0504806]
  2. National Natural Science Foundation of China [32001116, 31700392, 31700466, 31901192]
  3. Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [lzujbky-2021-ct16]
  4. Gansu Provincial Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars [21JR7RA532]
  5. Sichuan Science and Technology Program [2018JY0541]
  6. Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Southwest Minzu University [2020NQN27]
  7. Open Foundation of Lanzhou University State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems

向作者/读者索取更多资源

This study examined the effects of yak grazing on foliar fungal diseases in an alpine meadow ecosystem of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The results showed that grazing influenced the prevalence of these diseases through the evenness and composition of the plant community. This study highlights the importance of considering host plant community characteristics in disease load prediction frameworks.
Grazing is one of the most important management practices for grasslands. To date, most studies on how grazing affects plant diseases have focused on a single plant species, ignoring plant community characteristics and phylogeny. We used data from a 6-year yak grazing experiment (0, 1, 2, and 3 yak(s) ha( - 1) treatment) in an alpine meadow ecosystem of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, from which we tested grazing effects on foliar fungal diseases at both population and community levels. By measuring plant community variables (including richness, evenness, phylogenetic diversity, and composition) and disease severity, we evaluated the relative importance of plant community-mediated effects of yak grazing on community pathogen load with a multi-model inference approach. We found significant differences in pathogen load among different grazing treatments; we recorded the highest and lowest pathogen loads in the 1 yak ha( - 1) treatment and in the 3 yaks ha( - 1) treatment, respectively. Pielou's evenness index and community proneness (i.e., an estimate of the capacity of plant communities to support diseases) best explained variation in pathogen load, indicating that plant community-mediated effects (through evenness and proneness) of yak grazing determined pathogen load. Our study provides empirical evidence that grazing influences foliar fungal disease prevalence through plant community evenness and composition, which demonstrates the necessity of incorporating host plant community characteristics into disease load prediction frameworks.

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