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Forests
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Forest Pathogens and Diseases under Changing Climate
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Forest Pathogens and Diseases under Changing Climate

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2022) | Viewed by 5607

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Audrius Menkis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Interests: forest health and protection; disease management; invasive pathogens; disease diagnostics; biology and ecology of pathogenic fungi
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The world’s climate is changing. Higher temperatures, droughts, storms, and forest fires are likely to be more frequent and intense in the future. Although these events can have a major direct impact on natural and managed forest ecosystems, they may also stress forest trees, making them more susceptible to disease attacks. Climate change is also altering the distributions of forest pathogens and how they interact with forest trees. A deeper understanding of interactions between a changing climate, forests, and forest diseases is needed and may have important implications for managing disturbed forests, controlling forest diseases, and thus, mitigating the negative effects of climate change. Research papers on the topic are most welcome in this Special Issue, but other types of paper are also invited.

Dr. Audrius Menkis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest diseases
  • new and invasive pathogens
  • fungal infections
  • changing climate
  • spread and control of forest diseases
  • abiotic factors
  • tree stress

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

9 pages, 4349 KiB  
Communication
Sooty Bark Disease in Sycamore: Seasonal and Vertical Variation in Spore Release of Cryptostroma corticale
by Nicole Burgdorf, Lisa Härtl and W. Andreas Hahn
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1956; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13111956 - 19 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1687
Abstract
Fungal pathogens that benefit from climate change have become more prevalent as a consequence of extended drought periods and higher temperatures. Since the dry and hot years of 2018/2019, the causative agent of sooty bark disease Cryptostroma corticale led to an increasing die [...] Read more.
Fungal pathogens that benefit from climate change have become more prevalent as a consequence of extended drought periods and higher temperatures. Since the dry and hot years of 2018/2019, the causative agent of sooty bark disease Cryptostroma corticale led to an increasing die back in sycamore forest stands in Germany. Thus, in 2019, spore traps were set up in one forest stand to investigate the dispersal of the pathogen under temporal and spatial aspects. The mortality rate in the study site due to sooty bark disease was quite high: 31% in spring, increasing to 49% in autumn 2019. Quantifying the airborne spores of C. corticale in consecutive periods of the year, a correlation with seasonal aspects was detected. In winter and spring, spore release was relatively low compared with summer months. In summer, high abundances of conidia of C. corticale were released. In July, 399 spores were detected per cm2 per day. From June to August, spore release was 12.6 times higher than in springtime. In autumn 2019, a decrease was visible, although the number of conidia was still higher than in spring. The vertical gradient of spore abundances changed over time: the lowest spore release was found along a gradient at 14 m of height in spring, which shifted down to 2 m in autumn. According to our results of spore release, sooty bark disease is strongly driven by the impact of seasonal factors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Pathogens and Diseases under Changing Climate)
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9 pages, 2595 KiB  
Article
Identification of Endophytic Microbiota of Phytoplasma-Infected Russian Olive Trees “Elaeagnus angustifolia L.” in the Northwest of Iran
by Nadia Azizpour, Sevil Nematollahi, Reza Khakvar, Manizheh Jamshidi and Mohammad Hossein Norouzi-Beirami
Forests 2022, 13(10), 1684; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13101684 - 13 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1398
Abstract
In this study, Russian olive trees exhibiting witches’-broom symptoms were collected from urban green areas in Tabriz, in the northwest of Iran. PCR analysis confirmed that phytoplasma caused the disease and, according to the resulting Sanger sequencing electropherogram, a mixed infection with two [...] Read more.
In this study, Russian olive trees exhibiting witches’-broom symptoms were collected from urban green areas in Tabriz, in the northwest of Iran. PCR analysis confirmed that phytoplasma caused the disease and, according to the resulting Sanger sequencing electropherogram, a mixed infection with two or more phytoplasma species within the Russian olive trees was revealed. Next-generation sequencing analyses, using the Illumina method, were performed on total DNA from the infected Russian olive plants to recognize the microbial genomic content and assemble the whole genome of the causative pathogen(s). The use of MetaphlAn2 and Kraken2 to analyze species composition revealed the very diverse and unique compositions of different Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic species within the infected plants. Several bacteria and fungi were discovered inside the samples, among which Mycoplasmatota was significantly dominating. Interestingly, the results also revealed a high level of endosymbiotic bacteria and Archaea (Methanobacteria) genome contents within the samples. Bowtie2, metaSPAdes, and CD-HIT pipelines were used to perform the initial genome assembly, and the whole genome of the notable phytoplasma species was assembled and submitted to Genbank. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Pathogens and Diseases under Changing Climate)
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24 pages, 4584 KiB  
Article
High Variability of Fungal Communities Associated with the Functional Tissues and Rhizosphere Soil of Picea abies in the Southern Baltics
by Adas Marčiulynas, Diana Marčiulynienė, Valeriia Mishcherikova, Iva Franić, Jūratė Lynikienė, Artūras Gedminas and Audrius Menkis
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1103; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13071103 - 13 Jul 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1905
Abstract
Climate change, which leads to higher temperatures, droughts, and storms, is expected to have a strong effect on both health of forest trees and associated biodiversity. The aim of this study was to investigate the diversity and composition of fungal communities associated with [...] Read more.
Climate change, which leads to higher temperatures, droughts, and storms, is expected to have a strong effect on both health of forest trees and associated biodiversity. The aim of this study was to investigate the diversity and composition of fungal communities associated with the functional tissues and rhizosphere soil of healthy-looking Picea abies to better understand these fungal communities and their potential effect on tree health in the process of climate change. The study sites included 30 P. abies stands, where needles, shoots, roots, and the rhizosphere soil was sampled. DNA was isolated from individual samples, amplified using ITS2 rRNA as a marker and subjected to high-throughput sequencing. The sequence analysis showed the presence of 232,547 high-quality reads, which following clustering were found to represent 2701 non-singleton fungal OTUs. The highest absolute richness of fungal OTUs was in the soil (1895), then in the needles (1049) and shoots (1002), and the lowest was in the roots (641). The overall fungal community was composed of Ascomycota (58.3%), Basidiomycota (37.2%), Zygomycota (2.5%), Chytridiomycota (1.6%), and Glomeromycota (0.4%). The most common fungi based on sequence read abundance were Aspergillus pseudoglaucus (7.9%), Archaeorhizomyces sp. (3.6%), and Rhinocladiella sp. (2.0%). Pathogens were relatively rare, among which the most common were Phacidium lacerum (1.7%), Cyphellophora sessilis (1.4%), and Rhizosphaera kalkhoffii (1.4%). The results showed that the detected diversity of fungal OTUs was generally high, but their relative abundance varied greatly among different study sites, thereby highlighting the complexity of interactions among the host trees, fungi, and local environmental conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Pathogens and Diseases under Changing Climate)
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