89 research outputs found
Effect of Biodiversity Changes in Disease Risk: Exploring Disease Emergence in a Plant-Virus System
The effect of biodiversity on the ability of parasites to infect their host and cause disease (i.e. disease risk) is a major question in pathology, which is central to understand the emergence of infectious diseases, and to develop strategies for their management. Two hypotheses, which can be considered as extremes of a continuum, relate biodiversity to disease risk: One states that biodiversity is positively correlated with disease risk (Amplification Effect), and the second predicts a negative correlation between biodiversity and disease risk (Dilution Effect). Which of them applies better to different host-parasite systems is still a source of debate, due to limited experimental or empirical data. This is especially the case for viral diseases of plants. To address this subject, we have monitored for three years the prevalence of several viruses, and virus-associated symptoms, in populations of wild pepper (chiltepin) under different levels of human management. For each population, we also measured the habitat species diversity, host plant genetic diversity and host plant density. Results indicate that disease and infection risk increased with the level of human management, which was associated with decreased species diversity and host genetic diversity, and with increased host plant density. Importantly, species diversity of the habitat was the primary predictor of disease risk for wild chiltepin populations. This changed in managed populations where host genetic diversity was the primary predictor. Host density was generally a poorer predictor of disease and infection risk. These results support the dilution effect hypothesis, and underline the relevance of different ecological factors in determining disease/infection risk in host plant populations under different levels of anthropic influence. These results are relevant for managing plant diseases and for establishing conservation policies for endangered plant species
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The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. II. UV, Optical, and Near-infrared Light Curves and Comparison to Kilonova Models
We present UV, optical, and NIR photometry of the first electromagnetic
counterpart to a gravitational wave source from Advanced LIGO/Virgo, the binary
neutron star merger GW170817. Our data set extends from the discovery of the
optical counterpart at days to days post-merger, and includes
observations with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), Gemini-South/FLAMINGOS-2
(GS/F2), and the {\it Hubble Space Telescope} ({\it HST}). The spectral energy
distribution (SED) inferred from this photometry at days is well
described by a blackbody model with K, a radius of cm (corresponding to an expansion velocity of ), and a bolometric luminosity of erg
s. At days we find a multi-component SED across the optical and
NIR, and subsequently we observe rapid fading in the UV and blue optical bands
and significant reddening of the optical/NIR colors. Modeling the entire data
set we find that models with heating from radioactive decay of Ni, or
those with only a single component of opacity from -process elements, fail
to capture the rapid optical decline and red optical/NIR colors. Instead,
models with two components consistent with lanthanide-poor and lanthanide-rich
ejecta provide a good fit to the data, the resulting "blue" component has
M and
c, and the "red" component has
M and
c. These ejecta masses are broadly
consistent with the estimated -process production rate required to explain
the Milky Way -process abundances, providing the first evidence that BNS
mergers can be a dominant site of -process enrichment
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