Chinese researchers confirm the importance of spatial scale-dependent dilution effects of biodiversity on plant diseases in grasslands, according to Lanzhou University.
Chinese researchers confirm the importance of spatial scale-dependent dilution effects of biodiversity on plant diseases in grasslands, according to Lanzhou University.
According to Liu Xiang, a researcher from Lanzhou University’s College of Ecology and the study’s leader, spatial scale plays an important role in predicting infectious diseases of plants.
Given the rapid loss of biodiversity, it is both theoretical and practical to gain a better understanding of the relationship between biodiversity and plant infectious diseases. The study looked at how the spatial scale influences the direction and magnitude of the biodiversity-disease relationship.
The researchers used a long-term nitrogen addition experiment in an alpine meadow in northwest China’s Gansu Province to see how the relationship between plankton and nitrogen affected the sample area.
Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth and is often limited in natural ecosystems. By adding nitrogen to the meadow, the researchers may have been able to investigate how increasing the availability of this nutrient affects the plankton community and the broader ecosystem.
Plankton are a diverse group of small, drifting organisms that live in aquatic environments. They include both autotrophic organisms (such as algae) that are able to produce their own energy through photosynthesis and heterotrophic organisms (such as bacteria and animal larvae) that rely on other sources of energy.
Biodiversity can have an effect on the prevalence and severity of plant diseases. This is because a diverse range of plant species can reduce the spread of diseases by creating a “dilution effect,” where the pathogen that causes the disease has fewer hosts to infect.
This dilution effect can be scale-dependent, meaning that it can vary depending on the spatial scale at which it is studied. For example, the dilution effect may be more pronounced at a smaller scale (e.g., within a single patch of grassland) compared to a larger scale (e.g., across a whole landscape).
The researchers at Lanzhou University in China have confirmed the importance of spatial scale-dependent dilution effects of biodiversity on plant diseases in grasslands, highlighting the importance of considering spatial scale in studies of the relationship between biodiversity and disease.