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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2097/1049
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| Title: | Connectivity of the American agricultural landscape: Assessing the national risk of crop pest and disease spread |
| Authors: | Margosian, Margaret L.
Garrett, Karen A.
Hutchinson, J.M. Shawn
With, Kimberly A. |
| Publication Date: | 2009 |
| Type: | Article |
| Journal: | BioScience |
| Volume: | 59 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Starting Page: | 141 |
| Ending Page: | 151 |
| Keywords: | Geographic information systems
Graphy theory
Invasive species
Landscape connectivity
Networks |
| Abstract: | More than two-thirds of cropland in the United States is devoted to the production of just four crop species—maize, wheat, soybeans, and cotton—
raising concerns that homogenization of the American agricultural landscape could facilitate widespread disease and pest outbreaks, compromising
the national food supply. As a new component in national agricultural risk assessment, we employed a graph-theoretic approach to examine the
connectivity of these crops across the United States. We used county crop acreage to evaluate the landscape resistance to transmission—the degree to
which host availability limits spread in any given region—for pests or pathogens dependent on each crop. For organisms that can disperse under
conditions of lower host availability, maize and soybean are highly connected at a national scale, compared with the more discrete regions of wheat
and cotton production. Determining the scales at which connectivity becomes disrupted for organisms with different dispersal abilities may help
target rapid-response regions and the development of strategic policies to enhance agricultural landscape heterogeneity. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2097/1049 |
| Appears in Collections: | Plant Pathology Faculty Research and Publications
Food Science Institute Faculty Research, Publications, and Presentations
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