Conventional wisdom states that genetic variation reduces disease levels in plant populations.Nevertheless, crop species have been subject to a gradual loss of genetic variation through selection for specific traits during breeding, thereby increasing their vulnerability to biotic stresses such as pathogens. We explored how genetic variation in Arabica coffee sites in southwestern Ethiopia was related to the incidence of four major fungal diseases. Sixty sites were selected along a gradient of management intensity, ranging from nearly wild to intensively managed coffee stands. We used genotyping-by-sequencing of pooled leaf samples (pool-GBS) derived from 16 individual coffee shrubs in each of the sixty sites to assess the variation in genetic composition (multivariate: reference allele frequency) and genetic diversity (univariate: mean expected heterozygosity) between sites. We found that genetic composition had a clear spatial pattern and that genetic diversity was higher in less managed sites. The incidence of the four fungal diseases was related to the genetic composition of the coffee stands, but in a specific way for each disease. In contrast, genetic diversity was only related to the within-site variation of coffee berry disease, but not to the mean incidence of any of the four diseases across sites. Given that fungal diseases are major challenges of Arabica coffee in its native range, our findings that genetic composition of coffee sites impacted the major fungal diseases may serve as baseline information to study the molecular basis of disease resistance in coffee. Overall, our study illustrates the need to consider both host genetic composition and genetic diversity when investigating the genetic basis for variation in disease levels.
1. Tropical agroforestry systems provide farmers with resources for their livelihoods, but are also well-recognized as refuges for biodiversity. However, the relationship between yield and biodiversity might be negative in these systems, reflecting a potential trade-off between managing for increased yield or biodiversity. The potential for synergies will depend partly on the shape of the biodiversity-yield relationship, where a concave relationship suggests a faster decline in biodiversity with increasing yields than a linear or convex shape.2. We studied the relationship between biodiversity (plant species richness and composition) and coffee yield along a gradient of management in south-western Ethiopia, coffee's native range. We inventoried species richness and community composition of woody plants, herbaceous plants and bryophytes at 60 sites. We also measured coffee management-related variables and assessed coffee yield for 3 consecutive years at each site.3. Species richness of woody plants had a concave relationship with coffee yield, that is, tree richness declined fast initially before levelling out at higher yields, whereas there was no relationship between coffee yield and species richness of herbaceous plants or bryophytes. Species composition of woody plants, herbaceous plants and bryophytes all had a concave relationship with coffee yield. 4. From a methodological perspective, we found that multi-year data on yield were necessary to reliably assess the relationship between biodiversity and yield, and that the number of coffee shrubs or coffee dominance were poor proxies for yield when trying to capture the biodiversity-yield relationship.
Synthesis and applications.The concave relationship between biodiversity components (species richness and composition) and yield suggests that there is a strong conflict between the goals of increasing production and conserving biodiversity. However, it is important to recognize that this pattern is largely driven by the very low-yielding sites in natural forests. Here, even minor intensification of coffee management seems to rapidly erode biodiversity. Along the rest of | 1199
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