Forest Microbiology: Tree Diseases and Pests

Forest Microbiology: Tree Diseases and Pests, Volume 3 provides an overview of major disease agents of trees including viruses, phytoplasma, bacteria, fungi and nematodes and major insect pests of trees. With a strong emphasis placed on the genetics, biochemistry, physiology, evolutionary biology and population dynamics of the organisms involved, this third volume in the Forest Microbiology series provides complementary information for a comprehensive understanding of the health of forests. Forest trees play crucial roles not only for mitigating effects of the climate change but also for their considerable economic and ecological value. Forest trees are equally vital as an alternative bioenergy source and play important roles in pollution abatement and the maintenance of biodiversity. Timber and its associated products from forest trees contribute substantially to the revenue generation of many countries of the world. There is no doubt that the demand for timber and associated forest products will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. However, major threats to the sustainable supply of forest tree products are adverse climate, pests and diseases. Pests and disease continue to pose a serious threat to the sustainable supply of forest products, despite the extensive efforts to control them. Today, the need to increase and safeguard those resources of renewable materials and bioenergy as well as to sustain timber quality together with the demand for novel wood bioproducts (including green chemistry) present major challenges for tree health biotechnology and bioeconomy programs. Ecologically, forest trees share overlapping habitat to diverse range of microbes and maintain a dynamic balanced relationships. This volume incudes coverage of important pest threats including bark beetles, emerald ash borer, coffee borers, leaf cutting ants, cocoa mirids etc .This volume will highlights a range of emerging diseases of forest trees in the temperate and tropic regions as well as parasitic nematodes and novel approaches to manage tree pest and diseases in a changing climate.

Dr Asiegbu has been the professor of forest pathology at the University of Helsinki since 2007. He has a master's degree in applied microbiology and plant pathology, and a PhD in biotechnology. His major research focus has been the application of biotechnology knowledge and tools for the determination of ecological, molecular and biochemical pathways required by emerging fungal and forest pathogens to spread, infect and cause disease to trees worldwide. He has been a member of the faculty interdisciplinary Master's Programme in Biotechnology and is also an invited professor at Nanjing Forestry University in China.

Dr Kovalchuk is a researcher at the University of Helsinki. He has a PhD in molecular biology and has over 30 peer-reviewed journal publications on forest microbiomes.

Part I: Forest and Tree Resilience
1. Forest resources and sustainable management
2. Anatomical, chemical, and molecular defenses of forest trees

Part II: Viruses, Phytoplasma, and other complex diseases
3. Viral diseases of trees
4. Phytoplasma diseases of trees
5. Witch’s broom disease

Part III: Bacteria Diseases of Trees
6. Bacterial diseases (including blight, wilt, galls, wetwood, scorch and canker)

Part IV. Nematode diseases of trees
7. Nematode diseases of trees
8. Beech leaf disease caused by nematodes

Part V: Insects and other pests of forest trees
9. Insect pests of boreal and temperate forest trees
10. Coffee pests
11. Eucalyptus pests
12. Vertebrate herbivore browsing and impact on forest production

Part VI: Complex diseases of economically important trees (case examples)
13. Dynamics of disease complex of cashew trees
14. Cocoa disease complex
15. Eucalyptus diseases
16. Oil palm tree diseases
17. Acacia tree diseases
18. Disease of rubber trees
19. Diseases of Bamboo trees
20. Diseases of conifer trees