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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

CABI’s 100 years in identifying and combating emerging fungal diseases in response to climate change

David Smith A * , Jonathan Casey B , Matthew J. Ryan A , Lisa Offord A , Alexis Rendell-Dunn B and Rob Reeder A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A CAB International, Bakeham Lane, Egham, Surrey TW20 9TY, UK.

B CAB International, Noseworthy Road, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8DE, UK.




David Smith is Director Biological Resources at CAB International. His research interests are in the conservation and sustainable use of microorganisms in agriculture and the environment.



Jonathan Casey is Climate Change Manager at CAB International. His research focus is on climate resilience and adaptation in smallholder farming sectors and resilient landscape management, and the uptake of climate-smart agriculture.



Matthew J. Ryan is a microbiologist and research lead at CAB International. His specific interests are in pure and applied mycology, biodeterioration, natural product research and the cryopreservation of fungi.



Lisa Offord is a bacteria and yeast specialist working in CAB International, Plantwise Diagnostic and Advisory Service, writing reports based on sequencing analysis for CABI’s Identification service.



Alexis Rendell-Dunn is Head of Content Management, Plant and Environmental Sciences at CAB International with experience in database publishing and particular interests in horticulture, postharvest and commodities.



Rob Reeder is a plant pathologist and team leader at CAB International providing diagnostic and technical support for plant health issues. He has a background in research on the biological control of tropical weeds with fungi and now focused on the diagnosis and management of tropical pests and diseases and the strengthening of plant health services in developing countries.

* Correspondence to: d.smith@cabi.org

Microbiology Australia 43(4) 160-164 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA22054
Submitted: 2 October 2022  Accepted: 4 November 2022   Published: 1 December 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

CABI has been involved in identifying and combatting emerging fungal disease of plants for over 100 years and in doing so has built a wealth of resources to support farmers and practitioners in reducing crop loss. CABI does not achieve this alone – being an international, inter-governmental, not-for-profit organisation, its 49 Member Countries guide and influence its work, which a network of global partners helps deliver. This work is becoming more relevant in light of increasing threats from climate change, invasive species and pathogens becoming resistant to biocides. Here, we focus on how climate change is influencing disease occurrence and how CABI’s work and resources can help in the battle to manage emerging and spreading diseases. CABI’s culture collection maintains living and active strains of pathogens and biocontrol agents for use as reference materials, its diagnostic advisory service and network of partners helps identify problems and provide solutions and CABI’s information resources underpin it all.

Keywords: bacteria, climate change, culture collection, diagnostics, distribution, emerging disease, fungi, information resource, plant pathogen.


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