ATMOSPHERIC CHANGE - EFFECT ON PLANT PESTS AND DISEASES

The atmosphere plays a key role in plant disease, but only recently ha s it become understood that atmospheric pollutants can influence the r esponse of plants to attack by pests and pathogens. This paper reviews the evidence for this phenomenon, considering impacts of sulphur diox ide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, mainly on fungal pathogens and aphid pests. Field observations in polluted areas have indicated changes in abundance of pests and pathogens and in some cases a causal link has b een demonstrated in controlled experiments. A major study is described in which consistent marked positive impacts of SO2 and NO2 have been shown on a range of British agricultural aphid pests, using four diffe rent approaches: fumigations, filtration studies, exposure along air p ollution gradients and a nation-wide field survey. Ozone, in contrast, produces a more complex range of responses. These effects are apparen tly mediated via chemical changes in the plant. Fungal pathogens show both positive and negative responses to air pollutants. A study is des cribed in which these opposite responses in two different fungal speci es were observed in a field SO2-fumigation system and confirmed in con trolled laboratory fumigations. Models are presented to describe the c omplex pathways by which air pollutants could influence host plant per formance via impacts on pests and pathogens.