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SUMMARY:The global movement of plant pests and pathogens: implications for
  food security - Sarah Gurr\, University of Exeter
DTSTART:20170119T130000Z
DTEND:20170119T140000Z
UID:TALK70119@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:38889
DESCRIPTION:Over the past centuries\, crop diseases have led to the starva
 tion of the people\, the ruination of economies and the downfall of govern
 ments. Of the various challenges\, the threat to plants of fungal infectio
 n outstrips that posed by bacterial and viral diseases combined. Indeed\, 
 fungal diseases have been increasing in severity and scale since the mid 2
 0th Century and now pose a serious threat to global food security and ecos
 ystem health.        \n \nWe face a future blighted by known adversaries\,
  by new variants of old foes and by new diseases. Modern agricultural inte
 nsification practices have heightened the challenge - the planting of vast
  swathes of genetically uniform crops\, guarded by one or two inbred resis
 tance genes\, and use of single target site antifungals has hastened emerg
 ence of new virulent and fungicide-resistant strains. Climate change compo
 unds the saga as we see altered disease demographics - pathogens are on th
 e move poleward in a warming world. \n \nThis presentation will highlight 
 some current notable and persistent fungal diseases. It will consider the 
 evolutionary drivers underpinning emergence of new diseases and allude to 
 the accelerators of spread. I will set these points in the context of our 
 recent disease modelling\, which shows the global distributions of crop pa
 thogens and their predicted movement and will discuss the concept of crop 
 disease saturation.  I shall conclude with some thoughts on future threats
  and challenges\, on fungal disease mitigation (and present of some of our
  work in this area) and of ways of enhancing global food security.
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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