Abstract
Predicting the dynamics of hosts and pathogens in natural systems requires a thorough understanding of the disease transmission process. It has been argued that, unlike for airborne diseases, the transmission of vector-borne diseases such as the anther smut fungus Microbotryum violaceum is a function of the frequency rather than the density of disease in a population. However, recent models indicate that frequency-dependent transmission of vectored diseases is only expected if the time required for interplant movement (host search) by the vector is short relative to the time spent per visit (handling time). Hence, frequency dependence is only expected to dominate at lower ranges of interplant distances. We test this prediction by analyzing disease transmission of M. violaceum in relation to interplant distance in a natural population of the host species Silene latifolia and Silene dioica. We conclude that (1) The infection probability of uninfected hosts strongly increased with the frequency of diseased h...
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