Study of Plant Disease Epidemics

Plant disease epidemics, caused by established and invasive pathogen species, continue to impact a world increasingly concerned with the quantity and quality of its primary food supply. The Study of Plant Disease Epidemics is a comprehensive manual that introduces readers to the essential principles and concepts of plant disease epidemiology. This useful reference and textbook provides a detailed exposition on how to describe, compare, analyze, and predict epidemics of plant disease for the ultimate purposes of developing and testing control strategies and tactics.

The authors have synthesized the research advances from the last four decades, with a special emphasis on research done in the last 15 years, to produce a useful framework for:

- Measuring plant disease

- Quantifying and modeling disease development in time and space

- Quantifying patterns of disease and sampling for disease in populations

- Determining decision thresholds for control interventions

- Characterizing the relationship between disease development and crop loss

This new reference introduces a coherent theory of disease development in plant host populations over time and space, coupled with detailed explanations of the components of diseases in crops and forests. This theory demonstrates how different levels of mathematical complexity can lead to unifying principles of disease invasion, persistence, and rates of temporal increase and disease expansion from foci. In addition, the book shows how disease control strategies are intricately related to fundamental population-biology parameters.

The information on modeling and statistical analysis provides the needed tools and procedures for researchers to help them properly measure and analyze collected epidemiological data and maximize its value. The methods and principles described throughout the book explain how to translate this valuable data and utilize it to make informed disease management decisions.

The Study of Plant Disease Epidemics is the highly anticipated original work by three of the leading plant disease epidemiologists of the last quarter century. This manual is an essential tool intended for graduate students, researchers, and teachers of plant pathology, as well as crop consultants and those in disease management positions. It will be an excellent teaching tool for courses in Plant Disease Epidemiology, Plant Disease Management, Invasive Species Risk Assessment, and Plant Pathogen Ecology.