PubMed · 2026-05-28
Researchers propose a new framework called the Soil Spillover Framework (SSF) to understand how soil-dwelling plant parasites and pathogens move across habitat boundaries—like from wild areas into farm fields. The model identifies key factors like soil structure, seasonal timing, and buffer zones that determine whether disease spreads or is contained.
Below-ground spillover of soil-borne pests across habitat boundaries is ecologically significant but has been far less studied than above-ground disease movement.
The proposed Soil Spillover Framework (SSF) incorporates six variables—persistence potential, trophic interactions, vector pathways, dispersal cost, buffering effects, and biotic flow—to model how pathogens cross soil boundaries.
Spillover probabilities are often nonlinear and temporally delayed, meaning effects of pest movement may not appear until seasons after the initial crossing event.