Diseases of Forests and Urban Trees Transmitted by Insects

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (2 June 2023) | Viewed by 1921

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Division of Forest Protection and Game Management, Croatian Forest Research Institute, Cvjetno Naselje 41, 10450 Jastrebarsko, Croatia
Interests: forest pests; biological control; population dynamics of pests; integrated pest management; phoretic mites; arboriculture
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E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Division of Forest Protection and Game Management, Croatian Forest Research Institute, Cvjetno Naselje 41, 10450 Jastrebarsko, Croatia
Interests: forest entomology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

When it comes to forest trees, the general principles, where insects are secondary pests and vector pathogens kill trees, are well documented, with tree-infecting fungi and bark beetles as their vectors being the most researched and best understood, e.g., Dutch elm disease caused by the fungus Ophiostoma ulmi. However, there are still many gaps in knowledge regarding, for example, many ophiostomatoid species or novel occurring bacterial diseases. Little is known about their pathogenicity, especially if they are transferred to new environments. Besides research gaps, environmental changes have also been raising increasingly more questions regarding this topic. Some insects, which have never been considered to be significant pests, can now reach outbreak levels in forest stands. There is also still a lack of knowledge about the influence of climate change considering the occurrence of novel insect vectors on polymicrobial complexes. The investigation and identification of novel associations of insect pests and tree diseases have never been more prevailing matters.

This Special Issue aims to gather the most up-to-date knowledge concerning different pest species, of which some vector-specific pathogens (such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and phytoplasma) cause severe damage to trees and forest sites, as well as urban trees. We invite colleagues from all over the world to submit their research and contribute their observations of known pathogens vectored to novel host tree species, or novel insect vectors of known pathogens. We welcome papers in the form of experimental or observational studies as well as theoretical or literature compilations.

Dr. Milan Pernek
Dr. Marta Kovač
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • forest pests and diseases
  • phoresy
  • insect vectoring
  • fungi
  • viruses
  • bacteria
  • phytoplasma
  • bark beetles
  • ambrosia beetles
  • Ophiostomatales
  • Microascales

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 5631 KiB  
Article
Changing Relationships between Nitrogen Content and Leaf Spectral Characteristics of Moso Bamboo Leaves under Pantana phyllostachysae Chao Stress
by Zhanghua Xu, Hui Yu, Bin Li, Zhenbang Hao, Yifan Li, Songyang Xiang, Xuying Huang, Zenglu Li and Xiaoyu Guo
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1752; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111752 - 24 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1551
Abstract
Nitrogen is an important indicator of vegetation health, but the relationship between changes in the leaf nitrogen content of Moso bamboo leaves under Pantana phyllostachysae Chao (PPC) stress and leaf spectra remains unclear. We analyzed the relationship between the leaf nitrogen content and [...] Read more.
Nitrogen is an important indicator of vegetation health, but the relationship between changes in the leaf nitrogen content of Moso bamboo leaves under Pantana phyllostachysae Chao (PPC) stress and leaf spectra remains unclear. We analyzed the relationship between the leaf nitrogen content and leaf spectra of Moso bamboo leaves under PPC stress to investigate whether the relationship could be used to detect pests and prevent their spread. We measured the nitrogen content and leaf spectra of Moso bamboo leaves under different damage levels, identified spectral indicators that were correlated with leaf nitrogen content (by removing the envelope and first-order differentiation of the raw spectra), and estimated leaf nitrogen content from the spectral data using regression models. Leaf nitrogen content decreased with increasing pest damage, and the leaf spectral curves changed, with the “green peak” and “red valley” in the visible range disappearing and the slope of the spectral curve decreasing. The wavelength region with the strongest correlation between the nitrogen content and spectral characteristics changed significantly with increasing pest damage, and the correlation in the red-edge region gradually decreased. The fits of nitrogen-content estimation models tended to decrease and then increase with increasing pest damage and were worst among leaves in the moderate damage state (Mo). A disordered relationship between nitrogen content and spectral characteristics indicated possible PPC damage. The degree of disorder was greatest in the Mo state. This study provides theoretical support for remote sensing monitoring of PPC hazards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Diseases of Forests and Urban Trees Transmitted by Insects)
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