SGER: EID: Fire and the Sudden Oak Death Epidemic

Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx NY

Investigators

Abstract

The emerging epidemic known as Sudden Oak Death (SOD) has grown rapidly in the few years since it was discovered in coastal northern California. Due to current climatic conditions, a large range expansion is predicted to begin this year. Very little is known about mechanisms that might limit the spread of SOD or why past fire history appears to constrain the disease. These investigators have identified what may be the only landscape-level mechanism that appears to limit the spread of the disease, fire. This project will undertake a time-sensitive and exploratory set of preliminary experiments to gain further insight into the relationship between fire and the disease. It will contribute to a basic understanding of SOD spread dynamics in space and time at the landscape scale. The SOD epidemic could result in catastrophic losses, both economically and ecologically, given the large number of important plant species that are susceptible to the disease. Any insights into a treatment that could limit its spread are therefore of widespread importance.