Résumé
Epidemiological surveillance (ES) for crop production is the systematic process of collecting, analyzing and interpreting plant health data with the purpose of providing information for decision-making concerning practices that can avoid, mitigate or cure disease. At present, converging social and environmental concerns are increasing pressure on farmers and land managers to reduce or even phase out synthetic pesticides, creating a pressing need to better align ES with low-input, ecological-based crop production practices. Here we propose a framework for conceiving and prioritizing indicators for ES based on their potential to contribute specifically to management strategies that are curative or eradicative, prophylactic or that are based on agroecological principles. The framework organizes indicators along eight spatiotemporal axes and across different types of observations (explicit and collateral manifestations of pathogens and diseases, and predisposing factors), and it characterizes their contribution to each of the three management practices. Based on synthesis of the literature and expert knowledge for several diseases and syndromes in perennial and annual crops as illustrative case studies, we show how current epidemiological knowledge can inspire upgraded surveillance strategies that better support agroecology, and we point to future trends where additional research and tools are needed. This framework is novel because it goes beyond recent calls for modernizing ES that generally emphasize technological innovations, yet remain largely focused on observing pests and diseases without clear explanation of the associated management decisions nor the type of agricultural production system (conventional, organic, etc.) they target.