CSB#4: Do Plant Diseases Make Animals Sick?

Definitions:

Aspen: A species of trees

Pathogen: Disease-causing bacterium

Summary:

            In the past decades, mass wipeouts of trees have also affected the creatures living in close proximity. More recently, sudden aspen decline, a plant disease that has killed many trees has also impacted animals living nearby. In 2009, Erin Lehmer from the Fort Lewis College in Colorado reported that areas where this disease had impacted trees contained three times as many deer mice with the sin nombre virus, which can be fatal to humans. It has also been noticed that the causes of sudden aspen decline are more complex than just a single virus: droughts weakened the aspen trees, then later on, other fungi and diseases became the final agents in killing the aspens. Other research sites in which two-thirds of the aspens had died out also contained fewer small mammals, as a result of diseases. This new data has motivated scientists to determine how plant ailments affect animals, and vice versa.

Discussion:

            I picked this article because I am concerned about diseases and know that they do not only affect humans. This article has shown that plant maladies may be related to animal diseases in some way. Furthermore, this article relates to my life in the sense that I could get ill from a contagious botanic disease, since this article proves that mammals can catch disorders from aspens. 

Overall, I think that this research is a first step 

to a whole new discovery in diseases.

Questions:

1.     Have scientists proved that the sudden increase in the population of mice with the sin nombre virus is directly related to sudden aspen decline?

2.     Are deer mice known to be able to obtain diseases from plants, or can any ordinary mammal become sick as a result of a botanic disease?

Sources:

Milius, Susan. “Aspens bust, diseased mice boom.” Science News. Society for Science & the

Public, 7 Jan. 2010. Web. 8 Jan 2010. <http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68478/title/Aspens_bust,_diseased_mice_boom>

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