Concepts of plant health – reviewing and challenging the foundations of plant protection

Abstract

Plant health is a frequently used but ill-defined term. However, there is an extensive literature on general health definitions and health criteria in human medicine. Taking up ideas from these philosophical debates, concepts of plant health are reviewed and a framework developed to locate these concepts according to their position in several philosophical controversies. In particular, (i) the role of values in defining plant health in a naturalist versus a normativist approach; (ii) negative and positive definitions of plant health; (iii) reductionist versus holistic perspectives; (iv) the focus on functionality versus resilience, i.e. the ability of the plant to perform under stress with or without human interference; (v) materialist versus vitalist approaches; and (vi) biocentric versus anthropocentric views, are surveyed. The ways in which these perspectives relate to mainstream and alternative approaches to plant protection are explored and we suggest how the contradicting views might be reconciled. It is argued that none of these perspectives is without inherent contradictions, but that by combining contrasting approaches it is possible to provide a comprehensive though fuzzy concept. Rather than giving a new definition of plant health, a conceptual framework is developed that suggests what questions may be answered in debates on plant health issues and how such debates could be organized.

Seed exchange networks for agrobiodiversity conservation. A review

“…For example, there is increasing evidence that higher parasite species diversity is not just associated with, but is also a likely cause of a better ecosystem functioning, given that parasites diminish the likelihood that some species will become dominant (Ameloot et al 2005;Hudson et al 2006). This result may now be well established in ecology (together with the reverse link from higher biodiversity to lower incidence of diseases; Keesing et al 2010;Vourc'h et al 2012), but it is still normal in agriculture to regard parasites and diseases as problematic (Döring et al 2012a;Keesing et al 2012;van den Berg 2012). Similarly, meta-analysis of seed networks may uncover hitherto disregarded factors affecting diversity, for instance revealing how particular nodes shape diversity patterns across local vs. broad scales, the role of the economic and cultural context (e.g., developing countries vs. industrial ones) in influencing the form of seed exchange networks, as well as the importance of seed characteristics in how exchange networks evolve.…”

Long‐term trends in books of terms related to forest pathology

“…However, not all studied terms show a decrease in recent years: there has been a recent increase in the use of terms such as ‘ecosystem health’ in the studied books (Figs S2–S6). This could be related to the growing recognition that native tree diseases play a role in ecosystem functioning and biodiversity conservation (Lonsdale et al ., ; Ostry & Laflamme, ; Döring et al ., ). Although this is a positive sign, the negative trends for various terms related to tree health reported here call for increased efforts to make the population aware of and interested in trees, their diseases and the health of forests.…”

Climate change and plant health: designing research spillover from plant genomics for understanding the role of microbial communities

“…Soil heath is often considered an ecological characteristic (Karlen et al, 1997) while soil quality generally refers to physical, chemical and biological characteristics (van Bruggen & Semenov, 2000). The concept of 'soil health', just as 'ecosystem health' and even 'plant health' (Döring et al, 2012), is an intuitively appealing idea but difficult to define in practice. In many contexts, the quality of ecosystem services provided by a soil may be a practical measure of soil health, from the standpoint of benefits to humans.…”