Conifer Defences against Pathogens and Pests — Mechanisms, Breeding, and Management

Abstract

Purpose of Review Forestry in northern temperate and boreal regions relies heavily on conifers. Rapid climate change and associated increases in adverse growing conditions predispose conifers to pathogens and pests. The much longer generation time and presumably, therefore, lower adaptive capacity of conifers relative to their native or non-native biotic stressors may have devastating consequences. We provide an updated overview of conifer defences underlying pathogen and pest resistance and discuss how defence traits can be used in tree breeding and forest management to improve resistance. Recent Findings Breeding of more resilient and stress-resistant trees will benefit from new genomic tools, such as genotyping arrays with increased genomic coverage, which will aid in genomic and relationship-based selection strategies. However, to successfully increase the resilience of conifer forests, improved genetic materials from breeding programs must be combined with more flexible and site-specific adaptive forest management. Summary Successful breeding programs to improve conifer resistance to pathogens and pests provide hope as well as valuable lessons: with a coordinated and sustained effort, increased resistance can be achieved. However, mechanisms underlying resistance against one stressor, even if involving many genes, may not provide any protection against other sympatric stressors. To maintain the adaptive capacity of conifer forests, it is important to keep high genetic diversity in the tree breeding programs. Choosing forest management options that include diversification of tree-species and forest structure and are coupled with the use of genetically improved plants and assisted migration is a proactive measure to increase forest resistance and resilience to foreseen and unanticipated biotic stressors in a changing climate.

11th Hardwood Conference Proceedings

“…To combat the loss of biodiversity and to increase forest resilience towards abiotic and biotic stressors, there is currently a strong sentiment in Europe to increase the proportion of forests managed according to close-to-nature principles (Mageroy et al 2023). This means the establishment of mixed tree species forests with several canopy layers, management involving selective loggings, including the creation of minor gaps in the forest through clear cut.…”

Changes in Biologically Active Compounds in Pinus sylvestris Needles after Lymantria monacha Outbreaks and Treatment with Foray 76B

“…In recent decades, coniferous forests have been affected by various biotic and abiotic stressors, the frequency of which has increased due to a warming climate [ 1 , 2 ]. This increases tree mortality not only directly through drought and heat stress [ 3 , 4 ] but also indirectly by increasing their susceptibility to pests and pathogens [ 5 ].…”