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Descripción
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| Viruses are only second to fungi as plant pathogens, both for the number of diseases they cause and for their economic impact. Also, as is the case for animals, viruses are the major group of emergent crop pathogens. The only direct and most efficient way to control viral diseases in crops is the use of genetic resistance. The use of resistance is a preferred method for the control of plant pathogens, as it is a highly efficient, target-specific and environmental-friendly control. These advantages are countered by the ability of pathogens to evolve and overcome the protection conferred by resistance factors. Hence, much effort has been devoted to understand the evolution of virulence in plant pathogens, and of defences in host plants, as related to the success and durability of this control strategy. There is a wealth of theoretical studies on plant-pathogen co-evolution under different ecological and genetic scenarios, which have not always been matched by the correspondiing experimental analyses. This is particularly the case for plant viruses, which differ from cellular plant pathogens by their higher mutation rates, on one hand, but also by encoding for few multifunctional proteins in their small genomes, in which epistasis is important, traits that may condition their evolutionary potential. Plant-virus co-evolution has received comparatively little attention until recent years, and remains largely underexplored. Indeed, it has been proposed that virus infection would have little or no impact on wild plant populations, and that the high virulence of viruses in crops is the result of ecological changes associated to agriculture. If this were the case, plants would not develop defences against virus infection, and plants and viruses would not co-evolve. Within this context, I will address the following questions: i) what ecological factors determine virus prevalence and virulence in wild and cultivated plant populations?, ii) is virus infection a selection factor in wild plant populations resulting in plant-virus co-evolution?, iii) how do virulence and defence factors evolve? and iv) is virulence and defence evolution associated to fitness costs in the virus and the pathogen, respectively?. Results derive from observational and experimental analyses with different pathosystems, with an emphasis on tabamovirus infection of Capsisum crops and wild relatives. | |
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Internacional
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Si |
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ISSN o ISBN
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00-0000-000-0 |
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Entidad relacionada
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Societé FranÇaise de Phytopathologie |
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Nacionalidad Entidad
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FRANCIA |
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Lugar del congreso
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Paris |