PubMed · 2026-05-28
Researchers tracked fungal diseases on tall fescue grass over three years and found that while pathogen communities start similarly each spring, they diverge across years depending on rainfall and humidity. Wetter or more humid years produce distinctly different disease communities than drier ones.
Fungal pathogen communities on tall fescue started from a similar baseline each spring across all 3 years but diverged significantly as the growing season progressed.
Interannual differences in pathogen community composition were most strongly explained by precipitation and relative humidity, not by consistent year-to-year patterns.
Ordination analyses confirmed that environmental variation — not host plant differences — was the primary driver of which disease community assembled in a given year.
