While the human population is expected to reach 9.7 billion inhabitants by 2050, natural areas will increasingly be converted into agricultural space. French researchers wanted to know more about the viruses that attack plants and in particular the differences between plantswild and cultivated.
They worked for two years in South Africa, in an area where cereal cultivation bordered on Fynbos, a natural environment with many endemic species. They collected plant samples in these two environments in order to genetically identify the different families of viruses found there. Back in France, the same protocol was applied to the rice fields of the Rhône delta installed next to the natural landscapes of the Camargue. A total of 1,725 plant samples were analyzed.
“Wild” viruses still too little known
Results, cultivated plants were more frequently infested with viruses than wild plants. The authors explain this phenomenon by the fact that a concentration, in the same place, of genetically identical individuals, favors the diffusion of pathogenic agent. This is correlated with the appearance of epidemics in man, when agriculture has led to his sedentarization with the construction of villages.
The researchers also discovered 94 species of unknown viruses, all of which came from wild plants. However, similar viruses have been found in natural and cultivated environments, proof that there is an exchange between these two types of landscapes. Knowing that 50% of diseases in plants are due to viruses, it is important, according to the authors, to acquire more knowledge about these organisms to better contain disease and in particular on those from natural environments, still too little studied. Only 10% of viruses listed by the International Committee on Virus Taxonomy come from wild plants.
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