Fungal Pathogen Communities in International Sentinel Tree Plantings

Reciprocal sentinel tree plantings across three continents were examined for foliar fungal pathogens using High Throughput Sequencing. The dataset, authored by Isabel Alvarez Munck and last updated in May 2026, reveals high frequencies of cryptic pathogens in asymptomatic plants. Geographic location, tree species, and seasonality were key predictors of community structure.

Use Cases

• Modeling fungal community structure based on geographic location and host tree species.
• Comparing pathogen detection rates between High Throughput Sequencing and classical isolation methods.
• Analyzing seasonal variation in pathogen assemblages from multi-season sampling.
• Identifying latent or epiphytic colonization patterns in asymptomatic plant samples.

Strengths

• Data was collected from reciprocal sentinel plantings across three continents, providing a broad geographic scope.
• Findings are based on High Throughput Sequencing, which greatly expanded pathogen detection compared to classical methods.
• The dataset includes multi-season sampling, capturing distinct early and late-season pathogen communities.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

High Throughput Sequencing of foliar fungal communities from reciprocal ex patria sentinel plantings.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 05:29:01; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Reciprocal plantings across three continents.