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. 2020 Sep;23(9):1349-1359.
doi: 10.1111/ele.13537. Epub 2020 May 26.

Sick plants in grassland communities: a growth-defense trade-off is the main driver of fungal pathogen abundance

Seraina L Cappelli  1 , Noémie A Pichon  1 , Anne Kempel  1 , Eric Allan  1
Affiliations

Sick plants in grassland communities: a growth-defense trade-off is the main driver of fungal pathogen abundance

Seraina L Cappelli et al. Ecol Lett. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

Aboveground fungal pathogens can substantially reduce biomass production in grasslands. However, we lack a mechanistic understanding of the drivers of fungal pathogen infection and impact. Using a grassland global change and biodiversity experiment we show that the trade-off between plant growth and defense is the main determinant of infection incidence. In contrast, nitrogen addition only indirectly increased incidence via shifting plant communities towards faster growing species. Plant diversity did not decrease incidence, likely because spillover of generalist pathogens or dominance of susceptible plants counteracted negative diversity effects. A fungicide treatment increased plant biomass production and high levels of infection incidence were associated with reduced biomass. However, pathogen impact was context dependent and infection incidence reduced biomass more strongly in diverse communities. Our results show that a growth-defense trade-off is the key driver of pathogen incidence, but pathogen impact is determined by several mechanisms and may depend on pathogen community composition.

Keywords: Biodiversity experiment; functional traits; fungal exclusion experiment; fungal pathogen; growth-defense trade-off; nitrogen enrichment.

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