Spring Conference 2011 - Society for General Microbiology

Please note: Abstracts are published as received from the authors and are not subject to editing.
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Spring Meeting 11–14 April 2011
Harrogate – www.sgmharrogate2011.org.uk
SESSION AbSTrACTS
↑Contents
HA09 Cont.
Futures techniques for food biosecurity
Fiona lickorish
Defra, Area 1A, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR
The talk will focus on how futures research can support the identification of key challenges and opportunities for food bio-security and how
overall, this can be achieved via long-term trend analysis supported by a continuous horizon scanning process. The presentation will start
with a general introduction to futures research – what does it do, who is using it, what are the key methods. it will cover horizon scanning,
making some rough suggestions on what a topic specific scanning system could look like, how it could be implemented and what types
of benefits such a system would have. Finally, it will describe some of the key megatrends and what impact they might have on food biosecurity
and will then focus on 3–4 interesting trends and will explain that these types of outputs are; what futures research produces and
cover some key conclusions about impacts to show the value of the process to participants.
New environments – new pathogens?
Marion Wooldridge
Centre for Epidemiology & Risk Analysis, Veterinary Laboratories Agency (Weybridge)
Our environment is changing – and not just climate, but human demographics, society and culture, global politics and economics, and
technology. All may affects pathogens, directly or indirectly. Pathogens may spread into new niches created by change; or may be
transported internationally, rapidly, by new patterns of trade and transport; or may mutate at an increased rate, adapting to new conditions
or hosts. For example, increasing urbanization associated with economic issues may lead to farm management changes, and possibly
reduction of skilled and knowledgeable labour. The result may be new niches for pathogens, with any adverse effects going unrecognised
by staff less familiar with normal patterns. Another example might involve politics – differences of opinion may sometimes lead to civil wars
resulting in migration, untended crops and animals, reduced water supplies and hygiene, all of which can effect pathogen growth, spread,
transport and mutation, and thus food (bio)-security. And environmental changes rarely occur in isolation. Their interactions and subsequent
effects on pathogens, and thus potentially on food bio-security, is complex and difficult to predict. This presentation will look at a variety of
these complex pathways, and illustrate the issues with some already observed changes in food-associated pathogens.
Implications of climate change for pathogen defence in plants
ADriAN C. NEWTON, ian K. Toth, Nicola Holden
Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA (Email: adrian.newton@scri.ac.uk)
Climate change will have direct effects on both crop growth and yield and on plant pathogens as well as on the interactions between crops
and pathogens. Many single factor climate change studies have demonstrated many and sometimes conflicting outcomes, but interactions
are often complex with many trade-offs. Furthermore, outcomes such as effects on the fecundity and variability of pathogen populations
are seldom considered. Much more needs to be done to understand the likely behaviour of such complex systems under climate change.
However, in parallel an understanding of the key parameters of the biology of stability in host-pathogen is important for building-in resilience
to the consequences of climate change. Most important amongst these is functional diversity.
Plant pathologists focus on diseases and their causal agents. However, plants are hosts to complex communities of microbes including
beneficial and benign fungi and bacteria as well as pathogens of other crops and animals including humans. As pathogens, microbes are
often opportunists, normally occupying other ecological niches. Even specialised pathogens sometimes have extensive non-symptomatic
phases. Either direct effects of climate change or indirect cropping pattern changes through policy or market drivers may also change the
ecological relationships of microbes reducing or increasing pathogenic opportunity. understanding these relationships should inform our
crop production and integrated crop protection strategies, aiming for greater stability rather than pathogen ‘zero tolerance’. Food security
considerations bring in additional socio-economic, geographical and political factors. Enhancing resilience to the effects of climate change is
important for all these systems. in general, increasing functional diversity is one of the most effective targets for improved sustainability.
A new bacterial threat to potato production: Dickeya solani. Controlling its introduction and spread through monitoring and
a targeted response
GErrY SADDlEr, Greig Cahill, Karen Kelly, Malgorzata Kowalewska, David Kenyon
Head of Diagnostics & Analytical Services Division, Scottish Agricultural Science Agency, 1 Roddinglaw Road, Edinburgh EH12 9FJ
in Northern Europe and israel during the last five years potato production losses attributable to a previously unknown member of the
bacterial genus Dickeya have risen alarmingly. This new species, provisionally named ‘D. solani’, causes wilt, blackleg-like symptoms and tuber
s o c i e t y f o r g e n e r a l
Microbiology