EAGER: Spillover of coffee diseases into forest ecosystems and consequences for forest plant communities

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Many agricultural lands and protected natural areas are physically adjacent to each other and interact with each other, yet there have been few studies of how agricultural and natural ecosystems influence each other and what the consequences of these interactions are for both the effectiveness of agricultural management and the conservation of natural lands. Spillover is a term from disease ecology recently applied more generally to describe the movement and effects of organisms as they cross habitat boundaries. This project will advance understanding of the importance of spillover between agriculture and natural habitats and of the role of birds as well as wind in the dispersal of plant-associated fungi. By comparing fungi and plant disease between two types of coffee management, sun and shade, this research will inform decisions on the relative benefits of these agricultural strategies for coffee fungal disease management and for minimizing negative effects of spillover. This project will train a graduate student and two undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in science as well as provide outreach to student and community groups. The field of phylogenetic ecology provides a clear framework for predicting patterns and effect size of pathogen spillover from one host to others that can be applied to the spillover of pathogens from agricultural to natural systems. This research will estimate fungal movement by wind and birds, measure disease incidence in the forest, and assess effects of coffee on native forest plant communities by comparing community composition of understory plants at plots near and away from coffee. This project is high risk-high reward in its application of a phylogenetic framework to the community ecology of fungal spillover, its measurement of bi-directional movement and spillover from agriculture to natural habitats, and its examination of the role of birds as well as wind in the dispersal of plant-associated fungi. By examining the coffee-forest interface at sites where coffee is an introduced species yet closely related to many understory plant species, this project will test two integral hypotheses of phylogenetic community ecology: 1) more closely related hosts share more pathogens and disease than distantly related hosts; and 2) more closely related pathogens share more host species than less closely related pathogens. Testing the utility of a phylogenetic framework for predicting disease and plant community composition is important for developing a predictive understanding of biotic interactions between agricultural and natural plant communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.