1 - Effects of climate change on fungal diseases of trees

Summary

Introduction

Climate has been of great importance in the development of associations between trees and pathogenic fungi. In particular, the geographic range of each species of tree or fungus is delimited by factors such as temperature, moisture, snowfall and windiness which affect growth, reproduction and dispersal. Such factors affect the incidence of diseases by determining the distribution of a particular pathogen in relation to the geographic range of a potential host. Also, within a region where both host and pathogen are present, the severity of disease can vary with climate. Such variations can result from the direct effects of climatic factors on the pathogen, or from their effects on aspects of host physiology which determine resistance to attack. Other effects may involve other organisms with which either the host or pathogen interact.

In natural ecosystems, associations between particular tree and fungal species are often of great antiquity and have evolved in ways which tend to avoid mutual destruction. Environmental stability may have been a prerequisite for the development of many of these host-pathogen associations and, if that is the case, it follows that they will be perturbed by major climate change. Less stable relationships tend to occur in the simpler ecosystems that initially exist in man-made plantations, often involving new combinations of host and pathogen species that have artificially been transported beyond their natural geographic ranges.