title: Changing fitness of a necrotrophic plant pathogen under increasing temperature.
abstract: Warmer temperatures associated with climate change are expected to have a direct impact on plant pathogens, challenging crops and altering plant disease profiles in the future. In this study, we have investigated the effect of increasing temperature on the pathogenic fitness of Fusarium pseudograminearum, an important necrotrophic plant pathogen associated with crown rot disease of wheat in Australia. Eleven wheat lines with different levels of crown rot resistance were artificially inoculated with F. pseudograminearum and maintained at four diurnal temperatures 15/15°C, 20/15°C, 25/15°C and 28/15°C in a controlled glasshouse. To quantify the success of F. pseudograminearum three fitness measures, these being disease severity, pathogen biomass in stem base and flag leaf node, and deoxynivalenol (DON) in stem base and flag leaf node of mature plants were used. F. pseudograminearum showed superior overall fitness at 15/15°C, and this was reduced with increasing temperature. Pathogen fitness was significantly influenced by the level of crown rot resistance of wheat lines, but the influence of line declined with increasing temperature. Lines that exhibited superior crown rot resistance in the field were generally associated with reduced overall pathogen fitness. However, the relative performance of the wheat lines was dependent on the measure of pathogen fitness, and lines that were associated with one reduced measure of pathogen fitness did not always reduce another. There was a strong correlation between DON in stem base tissue and disease severity, but length of browning was not a good predictor of Fusarium biomass in the stem base. We report that a combination of host resistance and rising temperature will reduce pathogen fitness under increasing temperature, but further studies combining the effect of rising CO2 are essential for more realistic assessments.
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, Queensland Bioscience Precinct, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, Qld, 4067, Australia.|School of Agriculture and Food Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Rosalie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sabburg
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, Queensland Bioscience Precinct, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, Qld, 4067, Australia.
authors.forename: Friday
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Obanor
authors.affiliation: School of Agriculture and Food Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Aitken
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, Queensland Bioscience Precinct, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, Qld, 4067, Australia.
authors.forename: Sukumar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chakraborty
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D057231:Climate Change; D005670:Fusarium / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000382:microbiology; D018547:Plant Stems / Q000737:chemistry; D013696:Temperature; D014255:Trichothecenes / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D014908:Triticum / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D014255:Trichothecenes; C007262:deoxynivalenol
keywords: Climate change; Fusarium pseudograminearum; crown rot; disease severity; fungal biomass; mycotoxin; pathogen fitness; temperature; wheat