Metadata: Monitoring the Threat of Plant Disease
Sarah Jane Gurr: University of Exeter
<div>Fung al diseases have been increasing in severity and scale since the mid 20th Century and now pose a serious threat to global food security and ecosystem health. We face a future blighted by known adversaries, by new variants of old foes and by new diseases. Modern agricultural intensification practices have heightened the challenge and climate change compounds the problem - pathogens are on the move poleward in a warming world. We shall highlight some current notable and persistent fungal diseases and consider the evolutionary drivers underpinning emergence of new diseases; reveal some recent disease modelling work concerning the global distributions of crop pathogens and their predicted movement; and discuss the concept of crop disease saturation. We shall conclude with some thoughts on future threats and challenges, on fungal disease mitigation and ways of enhancing global food security.</div>
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