Tuesday, October 08, 2013

moving targets

Are plant diseases that cause catastrophic famines a thing of the past? Well, ahem, the pests and pathogens keep evolving, moving and spreading, and human activities like global trade and large scale monoculture often help them. So new threats to food security are emerging, and scientists have to find new ways of saving the crops we eat.

Some very scary things I learned from researching this feature which is now out:

Pests on the move

Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 19, R855-R857, 7 October 2013, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.09.034

Free access to full text and PDF file

Stem rust on wheat stalks. (Photo: Liang Qu/IAEA.)

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