Death of the assumption that "latent period" is fixed over the course of a plant disease epidemic

Abstract

The latent period is a crucial life history trait, particularly for polycyclic plant diseases, because it determines how many complete monocycles could theoretically occur during an epidemic. Many empirical studies have focused on the variation of the latent period with pathogen or host genotype, or changes in response to environmental factors. The focus on these aspects is unsurprising, as these factors classically form the three parts of the epidemiological triangle. Experiments in controlled conditions are generally used to assess pathogenicity and host susceptibility, and also provide the opportunity to measure the distribution of latent periods in epidemiological systems. Once estimated for one or several pairs of host-pathogen genotypes, the mean value of this important trait is usually considered to be fixed and is often used \"as is\" in epidemiological models. We show here that the latent period can display non-negligible variability over the course of a disease epidemic, and that this variability has multiple sources, some of which have complex, antagonistic impacts. We develop arguments for four sources of variation that challenge the implicit assumption that the latent period remains constant: daily fluctuations in leaf temperature, nature of inoculum, host stage or age of host tissues, intra-population competition and selection for aggressiveness traits. We focus on the wheat fungal disease Septoria tritici blotch (Zymoseptoria tritici), making use of empirical datasets collected during the first authors own research projects and a targeted literature review. Such empirical epidemiological knowledge is new and potentially important for modelers. While some studies have demonstrated that the distribution of latent periods around the mean value has consequences for epidemiological dynamics, we show that it might also be important for epidemiological modelers to account for changes in this mean value during an annual epidemic. These results may be of critical importance for improving outbreak forecasting.