Ecology of Root Pathogens

S.V. Krupa

Dec 2012 · Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology Book 5 · Elsevier

About this ebook

Ecology of Root Pathogens discusses the significance of fungi infecting the roots, and emphasizes the significant diseases of roots and their symptoms. This book also names the genera and species of fungi that cause diseases of roots, and classifies and characterizes the root and pathogen interaction in soil. The book describes the behavior of plant pathogenic bacteria, such as Agrobacterium, Corynebacterium, Xanthomonas, Pseudomonas, Erwinia, and Streptomyces. It also explores how plants and plant-produced stimuli affect the associated population of plant parasitic nematodes and how these plant parasitic nematodes affect higher plants in certain ways. In addition, this book discusses the morphology, classification, nomenclature, multiplication and translocation of viruses infecting the plants. It also describes the symptoms of the virus infection in roots. The book includes a discussion on the fundamentals of biological control, which include the pathosystem concept, the behavior of the soil microflora in the soil, the reservoirs for infection, the processes of pathogen decline, and the integrated effects on the decline of the pathogen. This discussion on biological control also presents the natural and artificially induced biological control. This book will be of great value to soil microbiologists and plant pathologists.

About the author

Sagar V. Krupa received his Fil-Dr. (hab.) from the University of Uppsala, Sweden in 1972. He joined the University of Minnesota, St. Paul in 1973 and is a Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology. During the last 25 years, he has conducted interdisciplinary research on atmospheric processes and their impacts on crops and forests. His recent studies emphasise the characterisation of atmospheric chemistry and modelling air pollution-vegetation effects relationships. He has published more than 120 technical journal articles and book chapters and in addition, 10 books, most recently on Elevated Ultraviolet (UV)-B Radiation and Agriculture. His textbook, Air Pollution, People and Plants: An Introduction (1997), for beginning college students, has recently been translated into Spanish. He is a Fellow of the International Air & Waste Management Association (only the second plant scientist to be so honoured) and is the first agricultural scientist to be awarded a Distinguished International Visiting Professorship by the Academy of Sciences, Mexico. He has served as the Science Co-ordinator for the $5.3 million Alberta Government-Industry Acidic Deposition Research Program in Canada, and as a technical consultant to the Committee on Protecting the Earth's Atmosphere of the German Parliament and to the UN-Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO). He has also been involved with international research and teaching programs in Canada, Finland, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Taiwan. In addition, he has been a reviewer for a number of research programs and governmental agencies in Canada, the US and the UK. He is an Associate Editor of the journal, Environmental Pollution.