Lethal Needle Blight Epidemic May Be Related To Climate Change
- Date:
- September 1, 2005
- Source:
- American Institute of Biological Sciences
- Summary:
- Biologists present strong evidence in the September issue of BioScience that a lethal outbreak of needle blight that is killing lodgepole pines in British Columbia is caused by climate change. The blight, caused by the fungus Dothistroma septosporum, causes trees to loose their needles and eventually die. Lodgepole pines are an economically important species, being used in construction and for pulp.
- Share:
Biologists studying a lethal blight of lodgepole pines in northwesternBritish Columbia present strong evidence in the September issue ofBioScience that climate change is to blame for the outbreak. Theblight, caused by the fungus Dothistroma septosporum, causes trees tolose their needles and, in the case of the British Columbia outbreak,eventually die. D. septosporum has long been recognized as a pathogenof pines, but although it is considered a serious disease of exoticplantations in the Southern Hemisphere, it has until now beenconsidered a minor threat to northern temperate forests. Lodgepolepines are an economically important species, being used in constructionand for pulp.
Alex Woods and his colleagues at the British Columbia Forest Serviceand the University of Alberta investigated climate records in the areaof the outbreak. The records provided no evidence of warming in theaffected area in recent years, but they did reveal a clear increase insummer precipitation over the past decade. That constituted a smokinggun, because D. septosporum's life cycle depends on summer moisture forspore distribution. The increase in precipitation had no clear link toa known climatic oscillation that might have explained it, and theauthors conclude that it is most likely related to a directionalclimate trend. The report of Woods et al. appears to represent one of agrowing number of examples of an indirect effect of climate change,because increased summer precipitation would have been expected, absentD. septosporum, to benefit lodgepole pines.
BioScience is the monthly journal of the American Institute ofBiological Sciences (AIBS). BioScience publishes commentary andpeer-reviewed articles covering a wide range of biological fields. Thejournal has been published since 1964. AIBS is an umbrella organizationfor professional scientific societies and organizations that areinvolved with biology. It represents some 90 member societies andorganizations with a combined membership of about 240,000.
The complete list of research articles in the September issue of BioScience is as follows:
- A Biosocial Approach for Analyzing Environmental Conflicts: A Case Study of Horseshoe Crab Allocation. Jay Odell, Martha E. Mather, Robert M. Muth.
- Forecasting Regional to Global Plant Migration in Response to Climate Change. Ronald P. Neilson et al.
- Is an Unprecedented Dothistroma Needle Blight Epidemic Related to Climate Change? Alex Woods, K. David Coates, Andreas Hamann.
- Successfully Curating Smaller Herbaria and Natural History Collections in Academic Settings. Neil Snow.
- The Origins of the Nile Perch in Lake Victoria. Robert M. Pringle.
Story Source:
Materials provided by American Institute of Biological Sciences. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page: