BIOTIC INTERACTIONS AND

PLANT–PATHOGEN
ASSOCIATIONS

Sumaiya nawaal rahman

Within-taxon Interactions with Interactions with

Virus vector
associations
Introduction
◦ The history of plant pathology has been dominated by the search for single agents of disease, how these can be identified and
how they can be shown to cause a distinctive set of symptoms in a particular crop.
◦ The reasons for this strong focus are understandable given the many examples of devastating plant disease epidemics (Horsfall
and Cowling, 1978), and the imperative to find control measures that will alleviate the economic, social and human
consequences.
◦ . More typical, then, are the complexes of diseases that occur within agricultural, horticultural and forest tree crops, and the
interactions between the causal pathogens, other biotic components associated with crops and the physical (abiotic)
environment.
◦ This is not an argument against the single agent–single disease approach but rather for a structured integrative approach that
does not lose contact with the complexity of plant disease in the field
◦ Biotic interactions result sometimes in complex diseases and sometimes in the suppression of particular pathogens
◦ Interactions may occur externally to the plants and result in situations in which the activation of pathogens is enhanced by the
biotic component of the environment (Dickinson, 1979); or within plants, to such an extent that diseases of complex aetiology
may be more common than those of specific aetiology.
◦ Biotic interactions may also suppress the activity of particular pathogens, either with respect to specific biological control
mechanisms involving mycoparasitism, antibiosis and hypovirulence, or to more general ecological mechanisms involving
competition.
◦ Examples of interactions between plant-associated fungi and bacteria and other organisms, including insects, are then
considered, including mutualistic associations and endophytes as well as pathogens.
◦ The virus–vector association is one of the most important biotic interactions in terms of plant disease and is reviewed in detail
elsewhere
◦ Biological control may occur as a consequence of within-taxon interactions, often mediated through the host, or as direct
antagonistic or competitive interactions within and across taxa, and examples of both kinds of interactions are reviewed.
Within-taxon Population Interactions
◦ Within the main plant pathogen taxa of fungi, prokaryotes and viruses, interactions occur at the population level that can
significantly influence the occurrence of plant disease
◦ basidiomycetes and ascomycetes, the occurrence of vegetative incompatibility as a form of (non-) self-recognition is virtually
universal
◦ . Genetic evidence suggests that vegetative compatibility group is an indicator of evolutionary origin at least in the vascular
wilt pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersici
◦ . Vegetative incompatibility can prevent or retard the transmission of dsRNAs associated with hypovirulence in the chestnut
blight fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica.
◦ Isolates of AG-2 were found which neither anastomosed with each other nor self-anastomosed.
◦ These isolates, although abundant in the field, have lost the ability to form sclerotia and have poor parasitic fitness: their
increase in the field may be closely related to the decline in sugarbeet root rot during monoculture.
 sclerotia
Anastomosis in fungi
chestnut blight
Interactions with Fungi
◦ Interactions of plant pathogens with other organisms, including insects, take many forms and have been investigated for both
natural and crop populations, although it is for the former that most ecological investigations have been made.
◦ The rust Puccinia monoica infects wild mustards, notably Arabis species, leading to a systemic infection that radically affects
the host’s growth and morphology, including infected rosettes, or pseudoflowers, which are highly attractive to flower-visiting
insects
◦ . In so doing, insect visitation promotes rust fertilization by bringing together spermatia of opposite mating types.
◦ Hybrids between two sedge Carex spp. were found to strongly influence the incidence of the floral smut fungus Anthracoidea
fischieri
◦ Many grasses form associations with fungal species of the plantpathogenic genus Epichloë and the related asexual endophytes
classified in Acremonium
Puccinia monoica

Carex spp.
◦ . During the sexual cycle in Epichloë, fertilization only
occurs with spermatia of the opposite mating type. This is
facilitated by specialized flies of the genus Botanophila
which feed on the fungal stomata, ingest spermatia and
pass them through their gut
◦ Bacteria may promote mycorrhizal formation but also soil
invertebrates may graze external mycelium.
◦ Foliar herbivores such as the stem and cone-boring moth,
Dioryctria albouitella, attacking Pinus edulis negatively
affect the ectomycorrhizal mutualism in susceptible trees

Acremonium
 Epichloë

Epichloë

Endophytic fungi
Interactions with Prokaryotes
◦ Bacteria are involved in many positive and negative interactions with other biota on plant surfaces and in the soil as discussed
later
◦ The plant-pathogenic bacteria Erwinia carotovora var. atroseptica (Eca) and var. carotovora (Ecc) are both transmitted by fruit
flies but the success of transmission for each depends on temperature
◦ Equally some prokaryotes are endosymbionts or pathogens of insects and in these cases the plant may be considered to be the
vector from insect to insect
◦ Endosymbiotic bacteria of aphids and whiteflies have also been shown to play a critical role in the stabilization and retention
of luteoviruses and begomoviruses in insect vectors.
◦ . Beneficial effects can include: (i) direct antagonism or niche exclusion of pathogens; (ii) induction of systemic resistance;
and (iii) increasing tolerance to biotic stresses
 Erwinia carotovora

carotovora
Virus–Vector Associations
◦ An understanding of virus transmission is the key to interpreting virus
epidemiology and the control of virus disease. Knight and Webb (1993) claim
that an understanding of the origin and evolution of vector–virus relationships
and the ‘predictability of potential vectors’ is largely dependent upon an
understanding of vector phylogeny.
◦ The value of understanding virus–vector transmission characteristics can be
seen in the recent global expansion of whitefly-transmitted viruses to new host
plants with the emergence of the ‘B’ biotype of Bemisia tabaci.
◦ Although much research has identified genomic components associated with
virus transmission by these organisms, as with the chrysomellid beetles
◦ In some cases, such as with helper-dependent virus complexes (Pirone and
Blanc, 1996), interactions at the genetic and physiological level can be scaled up
and the epidemic dynamics modelled
chrysomellid beetles
Thank you