https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8054-3379
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Carolyn C Pike, Jennifer Koch, C Dana Nelson, Breeding for Resistance to Tree Pests: Successes, Challenges, and a Guide to the Future, Journal of Forestry, Volume 119, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 96–105, https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvaa049
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Forests in North America are threatened by a myriad of native and nonnative pests and pathogens, the latter of which are largely introduced via the international trade of raw wood products and live plants. The early twentieth-century arrival of white pine blister rust (WPBR) (Cronartium ribicola) and chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) on imported seedlings devastated forests across North America. Invasive species notably affect entire genera. For example, WPBR has now infected all North American five-needle pine (Pinus) species across the entire United States, which has affected species of commercial and noncommercial value and threatened sensitive, high-elevation ecosystems (Sniezko et al. 2011, 2014, Sniezko and Koch 2017). The entire Lauraceae family, which includes avocado (Persea americana), redbay (P. borbonia), and sassafras (Sassafras albidum), is threatened by laurel wilt disease. American chestnut (Castanea dentata), once a dominant, keystone species, survives only as an understory shrub because of constant dieback from repeated chestnut blight infections (Dalgleish et al. 2016). Less common Castanea species in North America, such as dwarf chestnut (C. pumila), are also susceptible to blight (Dane et al. 2003). The extensive, rapid mortality of ash trees (Fraxinus species) caused by emerald ash borer (EAB) (Agrilus planipennis) has spread to 35 states and resulted in the listing of five eastern North American ash species—green (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), white (F. americana), black (F. nigra), blue (F. quadrangulata), and pumpkin ash (F. profunda)—as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List (Westwood et al. 2017). Invasive pests threaten native forest species at a time when reforestation is considered one of our best options for mitigating the impacts of climate change (Goymer 2018, Bastin et al. 2019).
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