plague occurs. Such additional studies will further help us develop more region-specific prediction regarding what might happen should climate change in some specific way.

I thank Tamara Ben Ari for having read and commented on an earlier version of this paper; furthermore, I thank her and Kyrre Linné Kausrud for allowing me to summarize yet unpublished work. Over the years working on plague dynamics, I have benefited enormously from collaboration with several colleagues, most importantly Herwig Leirs, Hildegunn Viljugrein, Mike Begon, Kung-Sik Chan, Noelle I. Samia, Stephen Davis, Kyrre Linné Kausrud, Tamara Ben Ari, Lise Heier, Elisabeth Carniel, Mark Achtman, Kenneth L. Gage, Vladimir S. Ageyev, Nikolay L. Klassovskiy, and Sergey B. Pole. I have learned a lot from them—any misunderstandings of what they have tried to teach me is due solely to my own shortcomings. On a more administrative side, I would like to thank Dr. M. Pletschette for his stimulating encouragement, which made me start working on plague in the first case. My work on plague has been generously funded over the years through the European Union Projects (ISTC K-159, STEPICA [INCO-COPERNICUS, ICA 2-CT2000-10046], as well as Marie Curie Early Stage Training grant to CEES), the Norwegian Research Council, and my own university and center. Last, but not least, I extend my thanks to the many hundreds of Kazakh plague zoologists who collected so many data over all these years.

Karen A. Garrett, Ph.D.⁹

Kansas State University

One of the most important effects of plant disease is its impact on crop plant productivity. Oerke et al. (1994) estimated that damage by disease and insect pests resulted in a 42 percent loss in the eight most important food and cash crops. Pimentel et al. (2000) estimated that 65 percent of U.S. crop losses, $137 billion, were due to introduced pathogens. The effects of plant disease can also be considered within the broader context of ecosystem services, defined as the benefits provided to humans by ecosystems, including services provided by plants and their pathogens (Daily, 1997). Ecosystem services include the following: (1) provisioning services, such as the more obvious provisioning of food, fiber, fuel, and also the provisioning of genetic resources; (2) supporting services, such as

Front Matter (R1-R22)

Summary and Assessment (1-53)

1 Climate Change Challenges (54-103)

2 Climate, Ecology, and Infectious Disease (104-178)

3 Historical, Scientific, and Technological Approaches to Studying the Climate-Disease Connection (179-218)

4 Policy Implications of the Health Effects of Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events (219-244)

Appendix A: Agenda (245-249)

Appendix B: Acronyms (250-252)

Appendix C: Glossary (253-257)

Appendix D: Forum Member Biographies (258-280)