Temperature is a major force for the development of foliar fungal pathogens. Such organisms develop onto and into leaves during their growth cycle. Thus, leaf temperature is the temperature they actually perceive (“body temperature”). However, air temperature has always been used by plant pathologists to study the effect of temperature on the development of foliar fungal pathogens. Leaf temperature may significantly differ from the air temperature according to weather conditions. Therefore, considering the air temperature to study foliar pathogens can potentially cause two biases: the measured temperature is not the temperature such pathogens actually perceive and the spatial heterogeneity of leaf temperatures within the plant canopy is ignored. In addition, the relationship between temperature and the development of foliar pathogens is nonlinear. This challenges the immoderate use of degree-day sums in plant disease epidemiology. The main objective of this thesis is to reconsider the use of temperature for the study of the development of foliar fungal pathogens.The wheat-Mycosphaerella graminicola pathosystem was chosen as the model of study. The strategy to achieve the objectives of the thesis combines two complementary approaches: experimentation and modelling. For the first time, the impact of leaf temperature on the development of a leaf pathogen was characterized. An original experimental device allowed determining the response law for three isolates over a wide range of leaf temperature, using thermal infrared lamps and measuring continuously the temperature of 191 inoculated leaves (F1 and F2). The response law of M. graminicola latent period to leaf temperature is similar to the concept of thermal performance curve (TPC) developed in ecology. As this TPC is non-linear over the entire leaf temperature range investigated, the impact of the amplitude of leaf temperature fluctuations has been characterized. A high amplitude led to several negative effects on M. graminicola development: an increase in the duration of the pathogen cycle, a decrease in the final sporulating area in the pycnidium density. Differences in kinetics of development depending on the amplitude of the fluctuations were only partially explained by the Kaufmann effect (purely mathematical), suggesting that M. graminicola mitigates the negative consequences of higher amplitudes of temperatures fluctuation. Finally, simulations of the development of M. graminicola performed using leaf temperature data differed significantly from those performed using air temperatures measured in a standard way, by a weather station. Simulations also underlined the importance of the time step considered. By transferring concepts from ecology to epidemiology, this thesis provided guidelines to better take into account temperature in epidemiological models. It helped to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms by which the environment affects micoorganisms, the cornerstone for the development of mechanistic models of possible responses to climate change.
