lthough pathogens are regarded as agents responsible for the specific dynamics of natural forest communities (Dickman 1992, Dinoor and Eshed 1984, Haack and Byler 1993, van der Kamp 1991), they have received little attention at the landscape level, especially compared to catastrophic abiotic disturbances, such as fire and blowdowns (Foster and Boose 1992, Heinselman 1973). With so much emphasis today on ecosystem management and the maintenance of natural disturbance regimes, the role of pathogens deserves careful scrutiny. Pathogens (biotic agents that incite disease) differ from many abiotic disturbances by selectively eliminating the less vigorous or genetically unfit individuals of a population, yet the biotic and abiotic agents are similar in that both function to recycle essential elements and to alter forest development and landscape patterns. Pathogen interaction with abiotic disturbance to control the direction and rate of forest succession also has received minimal attention, although such