Abstracts
Exploring the Vulnerability of Eastern Canadian Forests to Shifting Ranges of Tree Diseases Due to Climatic Change
Anthony Hopkin1, R.A. Fleming, J.N.Candau, and D. McKenney
1Natural Resources Canada
ahopkin@nrcan.gc.ca
The activities of insects and diseases greatly influence the structure and function of Canada's forest ecosystems from regeneration through mortality. Currently insects and diseases cause about 100 million m3, in annual losses to Canada's productive forest. The relationship between climate and plant disease is well established, though there has been little attention paid to the link between climate change and tree diseases. While global warming might influence the distribution and abundance of diseases, our ability to identify and predict these factors is limited. On this basis, working to understand and monitor diseases is an important part of Canada's work to manage for climate change impacts. Proposed climate change scenarios, which include warmer winter temperatures and more frequent droughts, will affect the occurrence of plant diseases in forestry in eastern Canada. Climatic change could influence the epidemiology of plant diseases through effects on survival of primary inoculum, rate of disease progress during the growing season, and duration of epidemics. These effects will positively or negatively influence individual pathogens. Environmental extremes are expected to increase, and interactions between diseases and other biotic and abiotic events, might represent the most important effects of climate change on plant diseases. Due to the long-lived nature of trees, the impact of climate change will have to be considered in forest management plans.
2005-04-05 |
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