OOS 23

Models and Mechanisms of Fungal Disease

Fungal diseases play critical roles in structuring natural communities, and can have devastating impacts on important ecological, economic, or cultural resources as well as human health. Emerging fungal and fungal-like pathogens such as white-nose syndrome (WNS) in bats, amphibian chytridiomycosis (Bd), and sudden oak death (SOD) share common patterns of rapid spread and mass mortality in hosts. These fungal pathogens may also share common physiological and epidemiological mechanisms that account for their dynamics and strong effects on host populations. These mechanisms include spore accumulation, host generality, and persistence in the environment. Recent advances in understanding fungal disease have emerged from observational, experimental and modeling studies of outbreaks of disease as well as study of native fungi and model fungal disease systems. In this session, we aim to synthesize these advances by highlighting both commonalities and unique, biologically driven, differences among systems. Talks in this session will feature new research on the mechanisms of disease spread, host mortality, and host-pathogen dynamics in fungal epidemics.