Emerging diseases in European forest ecosystems and responses in society.

By J. Stenlid, J. Oliva, J. Boberg, A. Hopkins. 2011

107 citations recorded by the source corpus.

New diseases in forest ecosystems have been reported at an increasing rate over the last century. Some reasons for this include the increased disturbance by humans to forest ecosystems, changed climatic conditions and intensified international trade. Although many of the contributing factors to the changed disease scenarios are anthropogenic, there has been a reluctance to control them by legislation, other forms of government authority or through public involvement. Some of the primary obstacles relate to problems in communicating biological understanding of concepts to the political sphere of society. Relevant response to new disease scenarios is very often associated with a proper understanding of intraspecific variation in the challenging pathogen. Other factors could be technical, based on a lack of understanding of possible countermeasures. There are also philosophical reasons, such as the view that forests are part of the natural ecosystems and should not be managed for natural disturbances such as disease outbreaks. Finally, some of the reasons are economic or political, such as a belief in free trade or reluctance to acknowledge supranational intervention control. Our possibilities to act in response to new disease threats are critically dependent on the timing of efforts. A common recognition of the nature of the problem and adapting vocabulary that describe relevant biological entities would help to facilitate timely and adequate responses in society to emerging diseases in forests.

Subfields: Ecology, Endocrinology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b588bce6d19d686e24f3cdb6650c750e2fc3072e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. T. Döring
2. R. Ennos
3. Marco Pautasso

In Endocrinology

1. R. Ennos
2. Marco Pautasso

In Plant Science

1. Marco Pautasso
2. M. Jeger
3. T. Döring
4. R. Ennos
5. M. Garbelotto
6. Ross K. Meentemeyer

Citations in the corpus

• Resilience of forests to pathogens: An evolutionary ecology perspective (2015, background): “…a significant increase in the frequency with which such damaging pathogen outbreaks have arisen in forests and there is widespread anticipation of future increases in devastating forest pathogen epidemics (Brasier, 2008; Stenlid et al., 2011; Forestry Commission, 2012; Meentemeyer et al., 2012).”
• Impacts of climate change on plant diseases—opinions and trends (2012, background): “Nonetheless, in many cases an increased frequency and severity of fires can decrease the ability of forests to provide goods and services (Sturrock et al. 2011).”
• An evolutionary ecology perspective to address forest pathology challenges of today and tomorrow (2016, unknown): “…long-distance transport, changes in climatic conditions, and human disturbance to forests ecosystems, in particular, changes in host density, which often interact (Anderson et al. 2004; Desprez-Loustau et al. 2007; Stukenbrock and McDonald 2008; Stenlid et al. 2011; Santini et al. 2013).”
• Urban trees: bridge-heads for forest pest invasions and sentinels for early detection (2017, unknown): “Increasing links between biologists, sociologists and economists, together with increased efforts to educate the public and stakeholders may assist in the identification of the most appropriate levers to tackle this issue in the context of increasing globalisation and climate change (Klapwijk et al.”