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

许多农业用地和自然保护区在地理上彼此相邻，相互影响，但很少有研究表明农业和自然生态系统如何相互影响，以及这些相互作用对农业管理的有效性和自然土地的保护有何影响。溢出是疾病生态学的一个术语，最近更广泛地用于描述生物体跨越栖息地边界时的运动和影响。该项目将促进对农业和自然生境之间溢出效应的重要性以及鸟类和风在植物相关真菌传播中的作用的理解。通过比较两种类型的咖啡管理，阳光和阴影之间的真菌和植物疾病，这项研究将告知这些农业战略的相对效益的决定咖啡真菌疾病管理和溢出的负面影响最小化。该项目将培训一名研究生和两名本科生，他们来自科学界代表性不足的群体，并向学生和社区团体提供外联服务。系统发生生态学领域提供了一个明确的框架，用于预测病原体从一个宿主到其他宿主的溢出模式和效应大小，可以应用于病原体从农业系统到自然系统的溢出。这项研究将估计风和鸟类的真菌运动，测量森林中的疾病发生率，并通过比较咖啡附近和远离咖啡的林下植物群落组成来评估咖啡对原生森林植物群落的影响。该项目是高风险，高回报，在其应用系统发育框架的真菌溢出的社区生态，其双向运动和溢出的测量从农业到自然栖息地，其检查的作用，以及风在植物相关真菌的传播。通过研究咖啡是一种引进物种但与许多林下植物物种密切相关的咖啡-森林界面，该项目将测试系统发育群落生态学的两个不可分割的假设：1）更密切相关的宿主比远亲宿主共享更多的病原体和疾病; 2）更密切相关的病原体比不太密切相关的病原体共享更多的宿主物种。测试预测疾病和植物群落组成的系统发育框架的实用性对于发展农业和自然植物群落之间生物相互作用的预测性理解非常重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.