Revisiting the Concept of Host Range of Plant Pathogens

Abstract

Strategies to manage plant disease—from use of resistant varieties to crop rotation, elimination of reservoirs, landscape planning, surveillance, quarantine, risk modeling, and anticipation of disease emergences—all rely on knowledge of pathogen host range. However, awareness of the multitude of factors that influence the outcome of plant–microorganism interactions, the spatial and temporal dynamics of these factors, and the diversity of any given pathogen makes it increasingly challenging to define simple, all-purpose rules to circumscribe the host range of a pathogen. For bacteria, fungi, oomycetes, and viruses, we illustrate that host range is often an overlapping continuum—more so than the separation of discrete pathotypes—and that host jumps are common. By setting the mechanisms of plant–pathogen interactions into the scales of contemporary land use and Earth history, we propose a framework to assess the frontiers of host range for practical applications and research on pathogen evolution.