Potential effects of diurnal temperature oscillations on potato late blight with special reference to climate change

Global climate change will have effects on diurnal temperature oscillations as well as on average temperatures. Studies on potato late blight (Phytophthora infestans) development have not considered daily temperature oscillations. We hypothesize that growth and development rates of P. infestans would be less influenced by change in average temperature as the magnitude of fluctuations in daily temperatures increases. We investigated the effects of seven constant (10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 23, and 27°C) and diurnally oscillating (±5 and ±10°C) temperatures around the same means on number of lesions, incubation period, latent period, radial lesion growth rate, and sporulation intensity on detached potato leaves inoculated with two P. infestans isolates from clonal lineages US-8 and US-23. A four-parameter thermodynamic model was used to describe relationships between temperature and disease development measurements. Incubation and latency progression accelerated with increasing oscillations at low mean temperatures but slowed down with increasing oscillations at high mean temperatures (P < 0.005), as hypothesized. Infection efficiency, lesion growth rate, and sporulation increased under small temperature oscillations compared with constant temperatures but decreased when temperature oscillations were large. Thus, diurnal amplitude in temperature should be considered in models of potato late blight, particularly when predicting effects of global climate change on disease development.