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Perspectives of spatial scale in a wildland forest epidemic

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Abstract

The challenge of observing interactions between plant pathogens, their hosts, and environmental heterogeneity across multiple spatial scales commonly limits our ability to understand and manage wildland forest epidemics. Using the forest pathogen Phytopthora ramorum as a case study, we established 20 multiscale field sites to analyze how host-pathogen-environment relationships vary across spatial scales of observation in a wildland pathosystem. We developed statistical models of disease intensity across five nested levels of spatial aggregation, from an individual host through four broader spatial extents of observation. Analyses were conducted from two spatial perspectives: a focal view, where disease intensity at one scale was examined as a function of broader-scale landscape conditions, and an aggregate view, where disease intensity and landscape conditions was observed at the same scale of spatial aggregation. For each perspective, separate models were developed to compare direct field measurements of host density versus less expensive remotely sensed estimates of host habitat as predictors of disease in landscape-scale studies. From both perspectives, models using direct measurements of host density performed better than models using remotely sensed estimates of host habitat across all four spatial extents. We found no significant difference in model performance at the individual level. From the focal view, the performance of host density models declined with increasing spatial extent, whereas the performance of host habitat models improved with spatial extent. These results illustrate how the scale of observation – both spatial extent and measurement detail – can influence conclusions drawn from epidemiological models of wildland pathosystems.

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Acknowledgments

We extend our gratitude to Monica Dorning, Richard Cobb, and anonymous reviewers for providing constructive critiques on previous versions of this manuscript; Amelia Johnson and Steve Johnston for their assistance with field data collection; the Sonoma State University Preserve System Fairfield-Osborne Preserve, the Sonoma Mountain Ranch Preservation Foundation, the Sonoma Agriculture and Open Space District, as well as multiple private land owners for granting us access to their lands to collect the data used here. This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DEB-1115720) as part of the joint NSF-NIH Ecology of Infectious Disease program and National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (09-598) Award Supplement (0622677). We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service-Pacific Southwest Research Station.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8002, USA

    Whalen W. Dillon, Sarah E. Haas & Ross K. Meentemeyer

  2. Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA, 95616-8751, USA

    David M. Rizzo

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  1. Whalen W. Dillon
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  2. Sarah E. Haas
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  4. Ross K. Meentemeyer
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Correspondence to Whalen W. Dillon.

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 7
figure 7figure 7

Box-plots of a bay laurel density, b proportion of host habitat, and c symptomatic leaf counts at the four site-level extents across the 20 multiscale study sites

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Fig. 8
figure 8

Correlation plots and coefficients between bay laurel density (c.ustem.dens.X) and proportion of host habitat (pct.hh.X) across the four spatial extents of the multiscale study sites. The number at the end of each variable indicates the extent at which it was measured/calculated, e.g. ‘pct.hh.60’ is the proportion of host habitat calculated for the 60-m extent

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Dillon, W.W., Haas, S.E., Rizzo, D.M. et al. Perspectives of spatial scale in a wildland forest epidemic. Eur J Plant Pathol 138, 449–465 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-013-0376-3

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