Emerging fungal threats to animal, plant and ecosystem health

Abstract

Pathogenic fungi are increasingly contributing to the global emerging disease burden, threatening biodiversity and imposing increasing costs on ecosystem health, hence steps must be taken to tighten biosecurity worldwide to reduce the rate of fungal disease emergence. Fungal infections have caused widespread damage in crops and dramatic decline in populations of amphibians and bats. In recent years newly emerged pathogenic fungi have been reported in corals, bees and many plant species. In this Review, Matthew Fisher and colleagues warn that human activity is intensifying fungal-disease dispersal by modifying natural ecosystems and creating new opportunities for evolution. Unless steps are taken to reduce the risk of these infectious diseases spreading globally, the authors suggest, fungal infections will cause increasing attrition of biodiversity, with wider implications for human and ecosystem health. The authors' recommendations include better monitoring of emerging diseases, stringent biosecurity controls on international trade and intensified research on the interactions between hosts, pathogens and the environment. The past two decades have seen an increasing number of virulent infectious diseases in natural populations and managed landscapes. In both animals and plants, an unprecedented number of fungal and fungal-like diseases have recently caused some of the most severe die-offs and extinctions ever witnessed in wild species, and are jeopardizing food security. Human activity is intensifying fungal disease dispersal by modifying natural environments and thus creating new opportunities for evolution. We argue that nascent fungal infections will cause increasing attrition of biodiversity, with wider implications for human and ecosystem health, unless steps are taken to tighten biosecurity worldwide.