Publications by authors named "R W Sutherst"
Article Synopsis
- Projected climate changes may contribute to the emergence of infectious diseases in plants, particularly in cassava, a vital crop for African smallholder farmers.
- Since the late 1990s, East and Central Africa have experienced pandemics of begomoviruses in cassava, which are linked to rising populations of whiteflies in the Bemisia tabaci complex.
- A climate model analysis revealed that favorable climatic conditions for B. tabaci increased significantly in pandemic-affected areas over a 39-year period, marking the first documented link between climate change and the rise of an insect pest leading to crop disease outbreaks.
The Bemisia tabaci species complex is one of the most important pests of open field and protected cropping globally. Within this complex, one species (Middle East Asia Minor 1, B. tabaci MEAM1, formerly biotype B) has been especially problematic, invading widely and spreading a large variety of plant pathogens, and developing broad spectrum pesticide resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProcess-based population models need sound and comprehensive data on an animal's response to climatic factors if they are to function reliably under a wide range of climatic conditions. To this end, different aged egg masses of the livestock tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, were either desiccated in atmospheres with saturation deficits of 5, 10, 15 or 20 mmHg at 20 or 26 degrees C, or chilled at temperatures of 5, 10 or 14 degrees C with a saturation deficit of 1 mmHg for varying periods. The survival rate of the eggs through to hatching was related to the initial age of the eggs, the severity of the treatments and the duration of exposure.
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