Abstract
The model EPIVIT, designed for contact- and aphid-transmitted viruses of tuber crops, simulates the percentage of infected tubers harvested from a potato field. It includes a module for tuber infection of plants with a tuberborne (secondary) infection (efficiency of autoinfection). This module postulates a monomolecular function for the relation between the efficiency of autoinfection and developmental heat, providing a theoretical basis for understanding how an infectious, systemic virus and the environment, represented by temperature, are interacting. The module was calibrated with temperature and autoinfection data obtained with the modern potato cultivar Yungay (Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum x S. tuberosum ssp. andigena) in five contrasting environments in Peru. Model estimates for potato X potexvirus (PVX), Andean potato mottle comovirus (APMV), potato Y potyvirus (PVY), or potato leafroll luteovirus (PLRV) were obtained. They were more accurate when temperature-sensitive growth rates were used for heat accumulation than with constant accumulation rates. The bell-shaped relationships obtained between heat accumulation rates and apparent temperature differed for each virus, with optimum heat accumulation rates at 28°C for PVY, and between 18 and 28°C, 20 and 25°C, and 23 and 28°C for PLRV, PVX, and APMV, respectively. With PLRV and PVY data, high precision levels (P < 0.05) were only obtained when the parameter trigger developmental heat was included. This parameter represents a threshold amount of developmental heat accumulated any time temperature fluctuates into the range between developmental cardinal temperatures, before heat becomes effective for the efficiency ofautoinfection. This calibration supports EPIVIT's assumptions regarding the influence of temperature on virus behavior in the host plant. With complete verification of this model component, validation is still needed for final confirmation of the model, as well as an elucidation of the biological mechanisms that underlie efficiency of autoinfection and virus behavior at different temperatures by analytical research.
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