Every other week, the Malmstrom Lab and our research collaborators around the world meet virtually for our Plant Virus Ecology group (PVEG) discussion. The field of plant virus ecology investigates how viruses interact with plants, with insects and other organisms that spread them (vectors), and with their environment. Research in this area aims to understand how plant viruses influence, and are influenced by, the structure and function of communities and ecosystems. In each group meeting, a volunteer leads discussion about a recent, relevant article. Dialogue may focus on the paper’s findings or may use the paper as a framework for more open-ended discussion about a specific topic.
The PVEG meetings emphasize the value of collaboration and the creative, interactive development of ideas. Our aim is to facilitate conversations and mentoring relationships between early career and established scientists. The virtual format of our discussion widens the potential scope of these collaborations to international researchers from various institutions, although the group is limited in size to allow full participation by all contributors.
Recent discussion topics:
Xu et al. 2020. Novel partiti-like viruses are conditional mutualistic symbionts in their normal lepidopteran host, African armyworm, but parasitic in a novel host, Fall armyworm. PLoS Pathog 16(6): e1008467. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008467
Sallinen et al. 2020. Intraspecific host variation plays a key role in virus community assembly. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19273-z
Onditi, Nyongesa & van der Vlugt. 2020. Prevalence, distribution and control of six major potato viruses in Kenya. Tropical Plant Pathology.
Skelton et al., 2019. Potato spindle tuber viroid detected in seed of uncultivated Solanum anguivi, S. coagulans and S. dasyphyllum collected from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. New Disease Reports. 39, 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.5197/j.2044-0588.2019.039.023
Fozouni et al. 2021. Amplification-free detection of SARS-CoV-2 with CRISPR-Cas13a and mobile phone microscopy, Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.12.001
Rodríguez-Nevado, C., R. G. Gavilán, and I. Pagán, 2020. Host abundance and identity determine the epidemiology and evolution of a generalist plant virus in a wild ecosystem. Phytopathology 110(1): 94-105.
Brook et al. 2020. Accelerated viral dynamics in bat cell lines, with implications for zoonotic emergence. Elife. Feb 3;9:e48401.
González, R., A. Butković, and S.F. Elena, Chapter Three – From foes to friends: Viral infections expand the limits of host phenotypic plasticity, in Advances in Virus Research, M. Kielian, T.C. Mettenleiter, and M.J. Roossinck, Editors. 2020, Academic Press. p. 85-121.
Di Mattia et al. 2020. Route of a multipartite nanovirus across the body of its aphid vector. J Virol 94:e01998-19. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.01998-19.
Written by Ally Brown