See other Science/Tech Articles
Title: Humans fostering forest-destroying disease
Source:
EurekAlert
URL Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/uonc-hff081507.php
Published: Aug 15, 2007
Author: James Hathaway
Post Date: 2007-08-15 21:26:48 by farmfriend
Ping List: *Agriculture-Environment* Subscribe to *Agriculture-Environment*
Keywords: None
Views: 178
Comments: 29
Contact: James Hathaway Enjoying your August vacation? Well, (as they say in the summer movies) there’s a killer in the woods. Its strike has been consistently quiet, sudden, and deadly. Unknowingly, we have all been playing into its hands… But put down that rock -- you personally are not in any danger. It’s the woods themselves that are getting axed and you may be an accomplice. Melodrama aside, the threat is very serious – the killer is an invasive, forest-destroying plant disease known as Sudden Oak Death. Caused by an (apparently) non-native water mold (Phytophthora ramorum), the disease affects a broad range of woody plants, and is particularly lethal to our native oaks. In the last few years, it has infected and killed large stands of western oaks with alarming suddenness (hence the name). From its initial California appearance sometime in the mid-1990’s, the disease has been spreading rapidly, changing the landscape as it goes. “People tend to not care about plants and forests as much as we do about humans and animals, but sudden oak death could be a bird flu of the plant world waiting to happen,” said Ross Meentemeyer, a landscape ecologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “This may be even worse than chestnut blight in its impact on our forests, since it is affecting multiple keystone species.” Since the same plant pathogen has also been found in forests of Europe, it is suspected (but not yet proven) that the sudden oak death pathogen was introduced by humans, probably from Asia. What has been shown by recent research is that human activities are amplifying the disease’s impact and spread. A recent article published by Meentemeyer and colleagues in the Journal of Ecology showed that “pathogen inoculum load” (the actual amount of infectious pathogen present) is greater in forests with high landscape connectivity and high abundance of host species. In a follow-up study forthcoming in Ecological Applications, Meentemeyer and his colleagues report that years of fire suppression and other land-use practices have altered structure and composition of forests in way that may facilitate spread of the disease. California’s oak woodlands have grown larger and denser over the past six decades. Counter-intuitively, this has made them more susceptible to being wiped out by the rapid onset of sudden oak death. ”More connected forests have more disease,” said Meentemeyer. “Smaller and more isolated forests have less disease. Being smaller and more isolated doesn’t necessarily prevent disease, but it occurs at smaller levels in those areas.” This finding connects with research presented in the article forthcoming in Ecological Applications. Meentemeyer and colleagues discuss findings that further suggest humans have been causing landscape changes that are encouraging the spread of the disease. The study examines detailed aerial photography records for an area of northern California and shows that oak woodlands have increased in area by 25% over a 58-year period, while grasslands and chaparral shrublands (non-host vegetation types) have both significantly decreased. The researchers suspect that the reason larger and denser patches of forest encourage the spread of the disease involves the role played by another California woodland tree—Bay laurel. Bay laurel is the primary carrier for the disease, since it acquires a non-lethal but highly contagious leaf infection. Bay laurel seems to be increasing in abundance in the changing forests and to make matters worse denser forests create cooler and moister understory microclimates that encourage the spread of the bay laurel leaf infection, which in turn can lead to the fatal infection of the oaks. The effect of larger, cooler forests “explained significant variation in infection level of P. ramorum,” the article argues. “We conclude that enlargement of woodlands and closure of canopy gaps, likely due to years of fire suppression, facilitated the establishment of P. ramorum by increasing contagion of hosts and enhancing forest microclimate conditions.” Unhealthy forest management may be encouraging the spread of the disease, but it is perhaps not the only way humans are furthering sudden oak death’s deadly march. In other research using Geographic Information System analysis, Meentemeyer and his colleague Hall Cushman at Sonoma State University found evidence that humans may be spreading the disease directly through the unintentional transportation of small amounts of infected soil. “There is some compelling evidence that humans could be moving the disease in infested soil,” Meentemeyer said. “We have found evidence for human involvement at three different scales of analysis. First of all, the pathogen is much more likely to occur along hiking and biking trails, where humans travel. Second, using some of our landscape and regional data, we have shown that highly visited state and county parks have more disease than private ranches and lands that have very limited visitation. “We have also found on an even broader scale across the state of California that forests surrounded by high human population densities are more likely to be infected. In this analysis, we carefully controlled for the effect of climate and other environmental factors known to cause disease.” The research has alarming implications, as California’s much-loved woodlands are already approximately 10 percent infected and the remainder, the models suggest, are highly vulnerable. “Only a fraction of the high risk forests are currently affected, so there is a lot of potential for more to happen,” Meentemeyer said. “This is why we have also been working on more dynamic models that simulate spread through time. We’ve been using this work to guide management activities for early detection surveys at sites that are likely to be infected. Once the disease is present, the only way you can control it is by detecting early it at locations where it is isolated and small – before it becomes epidemic. “Over the past 4 years I have directed an early detection program in which we have been sampling over a thousand sites all over high-risk habitats in California, guided by our computer risk models,” he noted. Whether the disease is at risk to spread beyond its current range, particularly to eastern North America’s oak-rich forests, is still unclear. “Eastern forest trees like red oak and pin oak have been shown to be susceptible in the lab,” Meentemeyer warns. “There are models that show what areas might be at risk based on climate matching with California, but we can’t validate the models yet. The disease is not there, so we don’t know what conditions in nature are favorable or not… we have very different weather conditions and very different plant species in these forests. The Eastern forests are certainly at risk, but we don’t know to what degree at this time.”
Poster Comment: They cut logging to protect the forests. The resultant over crowding of trees is making them susceptible to disease. Now they are going to blame humans for spreading the disease so the answer will be to keep humans out of the forest. How about we just thin like you would a garden, after all that is why man was put on Earth, to tend the garden.
Humans fostering forest-destroying disease
jbhathaw@uncc.edu
794-687-6675
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: farmfriend (#0)
more likely.... Since the same plant pathogen has also been found in forests of Europe, it is suspected (but not yet proven) that the sudden oak death pathogen was introduced by humans, probably from Fort Detrick. for the reason you state: the answer will be to keep humans out of the forest. "...The Wildlands Project would set up to one-half of America into core wilderness reserves and interconnecting corridors (red), all surrounded by interconnecting buffer zones (yellow). No human activity would be permitted in the red, and only highly regulated activity would be permitted in the yellow areas...." Wildlands Map of U.S. http://www.discerningtoday.org/wildlands_map_of_us.htm [a favorite sheeple comment: "...but where will they put all the PEOPLE?"] "...."We have got to share this planet with the other living creatures, and sharing means not merely preserving them in zoos or National Parks, but setting aside huge areas. Whole regions perhaps that will be free of human interference. Ideally, I would like to see certain large areas of the planet set off-limits to human entry of any kind, even aerial over flights." Edward Abbey-Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: The Natural Wonder: An Ecocentric World View. New Dimensions Radio, 1998....."
Good Stewardship bump! BTW, my gr-grandfather was a logger in Oregon territory.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
I have a friend who speculates that it came in on ornamentals.
Cool! My dad was a forester. I spent most of my childhood in the woods.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition I wish I had!
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
me too! saw a news clip today...some college kids volunteering to create trails in the nationl parks...they were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all...one girl said it made her realize you don't really need a lot of things to be happy....maybe we'll get the chance, robin.... Eze 34:22 Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle. Eze 34:23 And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, [even] my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. Eze 34:24 And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken [it]. Eze 34:25 ¶ And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. Eze 34:26 And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. Eze 34:27 And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I [am] the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. Eze 34:28 And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land [humanist government] devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make [them] afraid. Eze 34:29 And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. Eze 34:30 Thus shall they know that I the LORD their God [am] with them, and [that] they, [even] the house of Israel, [are] my people, saith the Lord GOD. Eze 34:31 And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, [are] men, [and] I [am] your God, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 34, written for Christian America [including the resurrected Old Testament faithful, Ezekiel 37] , from verse 10, on.
My aunt and uncle's church would have a week or two of summer camp for city children from areas that could not afford camp. Some had never been to the mountains. They all responded so well; most didn't want to go home!
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
RETURNING TO EARTH WORSHIP, PART 1 By Dr. Michael S. Coffman Ph. D. - September 29, 2003 Though few Christians are aware of it, the cry to "save the earth," "be sustainable" and "live in harmony with nature" is rooted in the ancient pantheistic religions that dominated the Egyptian, Babylonian, Grecian and Roman Empires. Former Vice President Gore even promotes them in his book Earth in the Balance, "...the prevailing ideology of belief in prehistoric Europe and much of the world was based on the worship of a single earth goddess, who was assumed to be the fount of all life and who radiated harmony among all living things.... "Environmental leadership and overzealous bureaucrats are perverting the law to attack American citizens from all walks of life while implementing their pantheistically based agenda."....... http://www.newswithviews.com/Coffman/mike4.htm Rom 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Rom 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Rom 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.....
what a wonderful thing to do! i BET they didn't want to go home! at least they got a taste of heaven on earth...i bet it made a lasting impression on them in so many good ways.
There really is nothing like the Sierra Nevadas. I grew up in both Susanville and Grass Valley. My dad worked on the Lassen National and Tahoe National. We heated with wood so in Susanville we hauled over 10 cord a year, in Grass Valley it was more like 4. I got to work on the Pacific Crest Trail. Camping, fishing, fond memories now but I hated it at the time. Never did do the hunting thing but dad would have taken me if I had showed an interest. He takes my son now.
Isaiah 55:10,11
I agree.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
Can't find 'em as easy there.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
Caught my first BIG trout in Convicts Cove just down from Downieville.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
too cool! Probably done more bass fishing than anything else.
My fondest memories are of spending a week almost every summer as a kid with my family in a log cabin in the Green Mountain Forests of Vermont...and once or twice Thanksgiving...bringing in the chopped wood for the big old cook stove, hauling water in buckets from the river or artesian spring next door...waking up to mist rising from the dew on the ground and the river rushing and gurgling by, birds singing, orrain tip-tapping on the tin roof, fresh brook trout rolled in corn meal and fried on top of that old friendly stove.....that was my heaven...[I told God I have first dibs on that place when He comes back :)]
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Isa/Isa055.html#11 Amen!
Can't find 'em as easy there. Oh I know...scary thought, how much they hate us....they would track us all down like dogs.... Psa 83:4 — They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from [being] a nation; that the name of Israel [ http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Rom/Rom009.html#6 ] may be no more in remembrance.
I used to go camping with the Scouts. I wear contacts, blind as a bat without them. Got up in the middle of the night to use the facilities, such as they were. My electric lantern threw weird shadows and I couldn't see. On the trip up my concern was getting there in time. On the trip back I started thinking about the local wildlife we knew was around. Then I heard the growl. Stopped dead in my tracks. Luckily I had already used the facilities. It was definately coming from our camp and one of our group was diabetic so we had food even though it was prohibited. It wasn't until about the 3rd or 4th time I heard the growl that I realized it was one of the dads snoring.
I can identify with that...lost one so even more blind now. It wasn't until about the 3rd or 4th time I heard the growl that I realized it was one of the dads snoring. lol! can identify with that one too! have to show the sleep apnea post of yesterday to the guilty one!
One acre of hemp produces as much pulp as four acres of twenty year old trees. I'm not sure what specie of tree was used to determine that ratio, but I think it was either southern or georgia pine.
" Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy." - William S Burroughs
Pine trees contain a lot of water and they can't be grown as close together as hemp can. They need to make hemp legal and decriminalize pot for medical use. Well I'm for legalization period but they need to go that far at least.
You and I could probably trade stories all day.
As you know, hemp is an annual crop. That would make it 80 times cheaper than tree forrested pulp in a rational society.
" Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy." - William S Burroughs
That day will come...hopefully soon! ....your tree or mine?
that's the key.
Only kooks would want that...where's the opportunities for obscene profits gained by exploiting others?
" Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy." - William S Burroughs
LOL! Exactly.
Since the same plant pathogen has also been found in forests of Europe, it is suspected (but not yet proven) that the sudden oak death pathogen was introduced by humans, probably from Asia.
#2. To: farmfriend (#0)
(Edited)
They cut logging to protect the forests. The resultant over crowding of trees is making them susceptible to disease. Now they are going to blame humans for spreading the disease so the answer will be to keep humans out of the forest. How about we just thin like you would a garden, after all that is why man was put on Earth, to tend the garden.
#3. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#1)
Since the same plant pathogen has also been found in forests of Europe, it is suspected (but not yet proven) that the sudden oak death pathogen was introduced by humans, probably from Fort Detrick.
#4. To: robin (#2)
BTW, my gr-grandfather was a logger in Oregon territory
#5. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt, REDPANTHER (#1)
wilding ping
"There is no 'legitimate' Corporation by virtue of it's very legal definition and purpose."
-- IndieTx
#6. To: farmfriend (#4)
#7. To: robin, farmfriend (#6)
I wish I had!
#8. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt, farmfriend (#7)
#9. To: IndieTX (#5)
wilding ping
#10. To: robin (#8)
#11. To: robin, AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#8)
My aunt and uncle's church would have a week or two of summer camp for city children from areas that could not afford camp. Some had never been to the mountains.
#12. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#9)
#13. To: farmfriend (#11)
There really is nothing like the Sierra Nevadas.
#14. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#1)
keep humans out of the forest
#15. To: farmfriend (#11)
#16. To: angle (#15)
Caught my first BIG trout in Convicts Cove just down from Downieville.
#17. To: farmfriend (#11)
There really is nothing like the Sierra Nevadas. I grew up in both Susanville and Grass Valley. My dad worked on the Lassen National and Tahoe National. We heated with wood so in Susanville we hauled over 10 cord a year, in Grass Valley it was more like 4. I got to work on the Pacific Crest Trail. Camping, fishing, fond memories now but I hated it at the time.
#18. To: farmfriend (#12)
#19. To: angle (#14)
keep humans out of the forest
#20. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#17)
#21. To: farmfriend (#20)
I used to go camping with the Scouts. I wear contacts, blind as a bat without them.
#22. To: farmfriend (#0)
#23. To: Dakmar (#22)
#24. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#21)
#25. To: farmfriend (#23)
#26. To: farmfriend (#24)
#27. To: Dakmar (#25)
in a rational society.
#28. To: farmfriend (#27)
#29. To: Dakmar (#28)
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest