Richness and composition of niche-assembled viral pathogen communities

PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e55675. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055675. Epub 2013 Feb 26.

Abstract

The pathogen and parasite community that inhabits every free-living organism can control host vital rates including lifespan and reproductive output. To date, however, there have been few experiments examining pathogen community assembly replicated at large-enough spatial scales to inform our understanding of pathogen dynamics in natural systems. Pathogen community assembly may be driven by neutral stochastic colonization and extinction events or by niche differentiation that constrains pathogen distributions to particular environmental conditions, hosts, or vectors. Here, we present results from a regionally-replicated experiment investigating the community of barley and cereal yellow dwarf viruses (B/CYDV's) in over 5000 experimentally planted individuals of six grass species along a 700 km latitudinal gradient along the Pacific coast of North America (USA) in response to experimentally manipulated nitrogen and phosphorus supplies. The composition of the virus community varied predictably among hosts and across nutrient-addition treatments, indicating niche differentiation among virus species. There were some concordant responses among the viral species. For example, the prevalence of most viral species increased consistently with perennial grass cover, leading to a 60% increase in the richness of the viral community within individual hosts (i.e., coinfection) in perennial-dominated plots. Furthermore, infection rates of the six host species in the field were highly correlated with vector preferences assessed in laboratory trials. Our results reveal the importance of niche differentiation in structuring virus assemblages. Virus species distributions reflected a combination of local host community composition, host species-specific vector preferences, and virus responses to host nutrition. In addition, our results suggest that heterogeneity among host species in their capacity to attract vectors or support pathogens between growing seasons can lead to positive covariation among virus species.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Aphids / virology*
  • California
  • Coinfection
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions*
  • Humans
  • Insect Vectors / virology*
  • Oregon
  • Plant Diseases / virology*
  • Plant Viruses / classification
  • Plant Viruses / physiology*
  • Poaceae / virology*
  • Prevalence
  • RNA Viruses

Grants and funding

Support for this project was provided, in part, by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants EF-0525666 and DEB-1015805 to E.T. Borer and E.W. Seabloom, EF-05-25641 and DEB-10-15909 to C.E. Mitchell, and EF-0525669 and DEB-1015903 to A.G. Power as part of the joint NSF-National Institutes of Health Ecology of Infectious Disease program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.