The importance of conserving plant pathogens – Blog and Comment from Professor David Ingram

Comment by David Ingram, Past President & Honorary Member, BSPP.
Former Chair, Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species

The State of the World’s Plants and Fungi is a major report that has been published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Within hours of the report’s release, news outlets around the world were carrying the dramatic story that:

TWO IN FIVE (c. 40%) OF THE WORLDS PLANT SPECIES ARE CURRENTLY AT RISK OF EXTINCTION

An on-line Symposium based on the Report is scheduled for 13^th to 15^th October 2020.

REASONS WHY WE AS PLANT PATHOLOGISTS SHOULD TAKE THE KEW REPORT SERIOUSLY

range from:

•  threats that invasive alien pathogens pose to plant diversity, worldwide, as is already being highlighted in this International Year of Plant Health;

to

• threats that large-scale plant extinctions pose for food security, since many of the endangered species are the progenitors of present or future crops which we as pathologists are committed to protecting from disease.

Often forgotten is another important reason:

IF 2 IN 5 PLANTS FACE EXTINCTION, ALSO THREATENED ARE THEIR ASSOCIATED PATHOGENS.

As plant pathologists, counter-intuitively, we have a duty to help conserve these pathogens because:

1. Native plant pathogens are essential components of all natural and semi-natural ecosystems, and contribute significantly to their structure, stability and productivity.

2. Wild progenitors of present and future crop plants co-evolve with their native pathogens and this generates a diversity of disease resistance factors that are or will become major resources for farmers and breeders in producing new disease-resistant/tolerant cultivars.

3. All plant pathogens and parasites have been and will continue to be of great value to:
   • Plant pathologists and scientists as research tools and model systems for study (see, for example, any issue of Plant Pathology and Molecular Plant Pathology) and;
   • Biotechnologists, as potential sources of novel, bio-sustainable human healthcare materials and strategies, plant disease control agents and bio-control strategies, food products, and energy sources.

POTENTIAL APPROACHES TO PLANT PATHOGEN CONSERVATION

1. In situ conservation of native plant pathogens with their hosts. UK leads have already been set by at least three initiatives:

• The BSPP resulting from the work of Nicola Hawkins and Fay Newbery, the launch in August of #wildplantdisease and @wildflowerhour challenge.
•  The Welsh Rust Group producing Red Data Lists and Census Catalogues for Wales of native Rusts, Smuts & their Relatives, Powdery Mildews and Downy Mildews. (Arthur Chater, Debbie Evans, Paul Smith, Nigel Stringer & Ray Woods since 2015.)
• The Wyre Forest Study Group (WFSG) A citizen science research group studying the natural history of the Wyre Forest in the West Midlands since 1991 and recently surveying native plant pathogens under the local leadership of Rosemary Winnall. They continue to record their findings in The Wyre Forest Study Group Annual Review.

There are, I am sure, many other similar initiatives already established in the UK, so if you know of others please let us know. Working together with Universities, Research Institutes, similar Citizen Science Groups, and Government & NGO agencies, will ensure rapid progress in such initiatives.

2. In situ conservation of plant pathogens on the wild progenitors of crop plants, especially in centres of diversity of major crops has been suggested in the past, but such approaches are fraught with the dangers they might pose by spreading infection to adjacent crops and therefore require far more study than hitherto.

3. Ex situ conservation, especially of culture and spore collections. This strategy potentially offers a safer way forward for the pathogens and potential pathogens of crop plants, a subject to be dealt with for all plant-associated fungi by M. J Ryan of CABI, UK in the Kew Virtual Symposium.

The World Data Centre for Microorganisms gives a good picture of microorganisms stored internationally. Despite recent progress in storage, problems remain:

– Only a small proportion of the world’s pathogens are currently stored.

– The geographical distributions of pathogens in collections is poor, with the USA and Europe over represented and other continents under represented.

– Many plant pathogen species have not been described or have been poorly studied.

– Obligate pathogens present a particular challenge. There has, however, been significant progress in developing advanced cooling technology in recent years, which offers hope for the storage of such organisms or their propagules.

The recently established UK Crop Microbiome Cryobank UK-CMCB is working to widen the coverage of fungi and bacteria held in culture and spore collections.

CONCLUSIONS

I firmly believe that all plant pathology organizations should take plant pathogen conservation seriously and

Develop A Conservation Strategy.

A good way to start is to

Think Globally and Act Locally.

The BSPP has already taken a lead and I sincerely hope that this lead will be built on urgently.

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An on-line Symposium based on the Report is scheduled for 13^th to 15^th October 2020.

Professor David Ingram (6^th October 2020)
Edinburgh University: Science, Technology and Innovation Studies;
Lancaster University: Environment Centre
St Catharine’s College, Cambridge: Honorary Fellow
Email: d.s.ingram@ed.ac.uk
Webpage: STIS Edinburgh, Honorary/Visiting Staff, David S. Ingram

 

Between 1960 and 1990 David Ingram was successively: undergraduate and graduate student, Research Fellow, Lecturer and Reader in Plant Pathology in the Universities of Hull, Glasgow and Cambridge; in 1990 he became Regius Keeper (Director), Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh; from 2000, Master, St Catharines College, Cambridge; and from 2006-present Honorary Professor, Edinburgh and Lancaster Universities.