Evolutionary Dynamics of Plant-Pathogen Interactions

This volume sits at the cross-roads of a number of areas of scientific interest that, in the past, have largely kept themselves separate – agriculture, forestry, population genetics, ecology, conservation biology, genomics and the protection of plant genetic resources. Yet these areas also have a lot of common interests and increasingly these independent lines of inquiry are tending to coalesce into a more comprehensive view of the complexity of plant-pathogen associations and their ecological and evolutionary dynamics. This interdisciplinary source provides a comprehensive overview of this changing situation by identifying the role of pathogens in shaping plant populations, species and communities, tackling the issue of the increasing importance of invasive and newly emerging diseases and giving broader recognition to the fundamental importance of the influence of space and time (as manifest in the metapopulation concept) in driving epidemiological and co-evolutionary trajectories.

Table of Contents
Preface
1. The diverse and ubiquitous nature of pathogens
2. Environment as a determinant of pathogen incidence, abundance and evolution
3. Genetics of host plant resistance and pathogen infectivity and aggressiveness
4. Sources and patterns of variation in plant pathogens
5. Demographic and genetic processes in host and pathogen populations
6. Co-evolutionary dynamics in a metapopulation context
7. Co-evolution and host and pathogen life-histories
8. Effect of pathogens on plant community dynamics
9. Future developments.