A study provides some of the first evidence that climate change and drought are shifting the range of infectious disease in forests suffering from white pine blister rust disease.

A study from the University of California, Davis, provides some of the first evidence that climate change and drought are shifting the range of infectious disease in forests suffering from white pine blister rust disease.

«Because pathogens have thermal tolerances, we are seeing expansions and contractions in this disease’s range,» said lead author Joan Dudney, a Davis H. Smith postdoctoral fellow at UC Davis in the lab of Professor Andrew Latimer, a study co-author. «Climate change isn’t so much leading to widespread increases in this disease but rather shifting where it is emerging.»

The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, found that white pine blister rust disease expanded its range into higher-elevation forests in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains between 1996 and 2016. At the same time, it also contracted its range in lower elevations, where conditions were often too hot and dry for its survival.

«Our study clearly demonstrates that infectious plant diseases are moving upslope, and they’re moving fast,» Dudney said. «Few pines are resistant to what is basically a Northern Hemisphere white pine pandemic.»

White pine blister rust disease is caused by a pathogen, Cronartium ribicola, and it has led to a major decline of white pine species throughout the U.S., including whitebark pine, which is in the process of being listed as a threatened species. The study suggests that whitebark pine and many other high-elevation pine species may become increasingly imperiled under climate change.

Story Source:
Materials provided by University of California — Davis. Original written by Kat Kerlin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.