Abstract
Outbreaks of pine wilt disease (PWD, caused by the pinewood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus), have caused mass mortality of the genus Pinus in Eurasia. Climate change may greatly influence the distribution and population dynamics of longhorn beetles of the genus Monochamus (the main vector of B. xylophilus), the survival and development of B. xylophilus, and the resistance of pines. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of climatic variables associated with extensive PWD outbreaks in Masson pine (Pinus massoniana Lamb.) forest across the eastern part of the Three Gorges Reservoir region. Since its discovery in 2006, the most serious PWD outbreak occurred from 2014 to 2018; the most striking characteristic of this outbreak is the consistent increase in Masson pine mortality and extent of the affected areas. Moreover, 28 out of 46 PWD biological relevant climatic variables were selected and used for redundancy analysis. The ordination biplots reflect the complicated quantitative relationship between the PWD epidemic variables and the biologically relevant climatic variables of temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, and wind speed. The results will be useful for understanding the role climatic variables play in PWD outbreaks, for predicting the spread and pattern of PWD outbreaks, and for the advance preparation of management strategies with the purpose of preventing future PWD outbreaks.
Highlights
Climate change has gradually become one of the most serious challenges facing the sustainable development of human society
The mortality rates were positively correlated with the Pine wilt disease (PWD) outbreak area; PWD damaged blocks more strongly correlated with PWD damaged sites (Table 2)
Our results revealed that the PWD outbreak is continuing, and the mortality rates and the extent of the damaged areas are increasing, even though there was no significant change in the number of damaged blocks and damaged sites
Summary
Climate change has gradually become one of the most serious challenges facing the sustainable development of human society. Climate changes have altered the distribution pattern of major forest insects and diseases worldwide and have increased the extent of damage to forest resources [2,3,4]. The fluctuations and increases of temperature in the context of global warming would directly affect the development rate, metabolic rate, survival, range, and other life activities of complicated vector-borne disease systems [8,10,11]. It has been suggested that climate change may have a negative impact on the growth of host trees [4,12,13]. Higher temperatures and water stress associated with drought conditions may negatively affect the physiological processes and defense systems of trees, Forests 2019, 10, 816; doi:10.3390/f10090816 www.mdpi.com/journal/forests
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