Many devastating pathogens are passively dispersed, and their epidemics are characterized by variation that is typically attributed to environmental factors. Here, by combining laboratory inoculations with wind tunnel and field trials using the wind-dispersed pathogen Podosphaera plantaginis, we demonstrated striking genetic variation affecting the unexplored microscale (< 2 m) of epidemics. Re...

The response of apple cultivars to powdery mildew attack – Podosphaera leucotricha (Ell. et Everh.) Salm. – on leaves and shoots, for seven years (1990-1996), emphasised a large variability for this character existing within 75 apple varieties tested in an experimental field at the Fruit Research Station in Cluj-Napoca, Central Transylvania, Romania. The experimental results confirmed that the ...

Co-infections by multiple pathogen strains are common in the wild. Theory predicts co-infections to have major consequences for both within- and between-host disease dynamics, but data are currently scarce. Here, using common garden populations of Plantago lanceolata infected by two strains of the pathogen Podosphaera plantaginis, either singly or under co-infection, we find the highest disease...