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Fluid fragmentation shapes rain-induced foliar disease transmission

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of The Royal Society Interface, March 2015
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (79th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
blogs
3 blogs
twitter
5 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages
reddit
1 Redditor
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

dimensions_citation
87 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
71 Mendeley
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Title
Fluid fragmentation shapes rain-induced foliar disease transmission
Published in
Journal of The Royal Society Interface, March 2015
DOI 10.1098/rsif.2014.1092
Pubmed ID
Authors

T. Gilet, L. Bourouiba

Abstract

Plant diseases represent a growing threat to the global food supply. The factors contributing to pathogen transmission from plant to plant remain poorly understood. Statistical correlations between rainfalls and plant disease outbreaks were reported; however, the detailed mechanisms linking the two were relegated to a black box. In this combined experimental and theoretical study, we focus on the impact dynamics of raindrops on infected leaves, one drop at a time. We find that the deposition range of most of the pathogen-bearing droplets is constrained by a hydrodynamical condition and we quantify the effect of leaf size and compliance on such constraint. Moreover, we identify and characterize two dominant fluid fragmentation scenarios as responsible for the dispersal of most pathogen-bearing droplets emitted from infected leaves: (i) the crescent-moon ejection is driven by the direct interaction between the impacting raindrop and the contaminated sessile drop and (ii) the inertial detachment is driven by the motion imparted to the leaf by the raindrop, leading to catapult-like droplet ejections. We find that at first, decreasing leaf size or increasing compliance reduces the range of pathogen-bearing droplets and the subsequent epidemic onset efficiency. However, this conclusion only applies for the crescent moon ejection. Above a certain compliance threshold a more effective mechanism of contaminated fluid ejection, the inertial detachment, emerges. This compliance threshold is determined by the ratio between the leaf velocity and the characteristic velocity of fluid fragmentation. The inertial detachment mechanism enhances the range of deposition of the larger contaminated droplets and suggests a change in epidemic onset pattern and a more efficient potential of infection of neighbouring plants. Dimensionless parameters and scaling laws are provided to rationalize our observations. Our results link for the first time the mechanical properties of foliage with the onset dynamics of foliar epidemics through the lens of fluid fragmentation. We discuss how the reported findings can inform the design of mitigation strategies acting at the early stage of a foliar disease outbreak.

X Demographics

X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 71 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 1%
China 1 1%
Unknown 69 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 17 24%
Researcher 8 11%
Student > Master 7 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 8%
Student > Bachelor 6 8%
Other 15 21%
Unknown 12 17%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Engineering 24 34%
Physics and Astronomy 8 11%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 7 10%
Chemical Engineering 4 6%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 3 4%
Other 13 18%
Unknown 12 17%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 55. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 February 2015.
All research outputs
#649,094
of 22,786,087 outputs
Outputs from Journal of The Royal Society Interface
#346
of 3,053 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,944
of 258,604 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of The Royal Society Interface
#15
of 73 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,786,087 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,053 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 27.8. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 258,604 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 73 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its contemporaries.