Abstract
lants are the primary producers on which all other members of an ecosystem depend. Because of the central importance of their hosts, plant pathogens drive many ecological and evolutionary processes in natural ecosystems. Disease-causing organisms can regulate host populations and/or modify their genetic composition, restrict host distribution at various spatial scales, promote or reduce community diversity, mediate plant-herbivore and plant-plant interactions, create canopy gaps, and reduce host growth or reproduction and thus affect the availability of food for animals. They also may drive the evolution of species, sex, and host defenses (see reviews in Alexander 1992, Augspurger 1988, Barbosa 1991, Burdon 1991, Dickman 1992, Herms and Mattson 1992, Parker 1992). For all of these reasons, the role of plant diseases in natural ecosystems deserves greater attention in conservation biology efforts. Still, despite the recent acceptance of plant pathology into basic ecological and evolutionary theory, the scientific community has yet to recognize the implications of plant diseases for forest conservation science.
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