Data from: Slow and temperature-mediated pathogen adaptation to a non-specific fungicide in agricultural ecosystem

The spread of antimicrobial resistance and global change in air temperature represent two major phenomena that are exerting a disastrous impact on natural and social issues but investigation of the interaction between these phenomena in an evolutionary context is limited. In this study, a statistical genetic approach was used to investigate the evolution of antimicrobial resistance in agricultural ecosystem and its association with local air temperature. We found no resistance to mancozeb, a non-specific fungicide widely used in agriculture for more than half a century, in 215 Alternaria alternata isolates sampled from geographic locations along a climatic gradient and cropping system representing diverse ecotypes in China, consistent with low resistance risk in many non-specific fungicides. Genetic variance accounts for ~35% of phenotypic variation while genotype-environment interaction is negligible, suggesting that heritability plays a more important role in the evolution of resistance to mancozeb in plant pathogens than phenotypic plasticity. We also found that tolerance to mancozeb in agricultural ecosystem is under constraining selection and significantly associated with local air temperature, possibly resulting from a pleiotropic effect of tolerance with thermal and other ecological adaptations. The implication of these results for fungicide and other antimicrobial management in the context of global warming is discussed.

抗菌耐药性（antimicrobial resistance）的扩散与全球气温变化是两大对自然与社会问题造成灾难性影响的重要现象，但目前在进化背景下针对这两类现象间相互作用的研究仍较为有限。本研究采用统计遗传学方法（statistical genetic approach），探究了农业生态系统中抗菌耐药性的演化规律及其与局地气温的关联。我们从中国境内沿气候梯度分布、涵盖多样生态型种植系统的地理区域中，采集了215株链格孢菌（Alternaria alternata）分离株，结果显示其中未出现对代森锰锌（mancozeb）的耐药性——这是一种已在农业中广泛使用逾半个世纪的非特异性杀菌剂，该结果与诸多非特异性杀菌剂耐药风险较低的结论相符。遗传方差可解释约35%的表型变异，而基因型-环境互作（genotype-environment interaction）可忽略不计，这表明相较于表型可塑性（phenotypic plasticity），遗传力在植物病原菌对代森锰锌的耐药性演化过程中发挥着更为关键的作用。本研究还发现，农业生态系统中对代森锰锌的耐受性受到约束性选择（constraining selection）的调控，且与局地气温存在显著关联，这可能源于耐受性与温度适应及其他生态适应之间存在多效性效应（pleiotropic effect）。本文讨论了上述研究结果在全球变暖背景下，对杀菌剂及其他抗菌药物管理的启示。