Our future forests

New practices bring new pathogens

Predictions suggest a future change in climate together with more intensified forestry in order to meet the increasing demand of forest products. Both forest management practices and climate can affect the susceptibility of trees to infection and the capacity of pathogenic fungi to cause damage. Root rot caused by Heterobasidion species, is one example of fungal pathogens that have increased due to modern management practices. The growth and activity of most fungal pathogens are very sensitive to factors such as temperature and humidity. Gremmeniella abietina is one pathogen whose damages are dependent on climate conditions. A changing climate may also allow the introduction of new fungal diseases, such as Dothistroma needle blight, Pitch canker (Fusarium circinatum) and Diplodia shoot and needle blight. The expected climate change, with increasing temperatures, increasing precipitation and higher frequency of extreme events will most likely affect disease frequencies in our future forests.

We use different methods ranging from molecular tools such as high-throughput pyrosequencing to large scale geographical distribution models to explore the dynamics of fungal pathogens in relation to management practices and climate. Many of our project are done in conjunction with large scale projects such as Future Forest, BACCARA, ISEFOR and FUNDIV.

Completed projects

Risk assessment and establishment of a system to address potential pathogens in Nordic forestry as a result of climate change (2012).
The project was funded by SNS.

The Rotstand model-a model developed to calculate the extent of damage caused by Heterobasidion annosum.

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