Tree diseases and landscape processes: the challenge of landscape pathology

Forest pathology inherently involves a landscape perspective, because tree pathogens propagate according to heterogeneous spatial patterns of flow and isolation. Landscape pathology is a field that is now emerging from the transdisciplinary cooperation of forest pathologists with landscape ecologists. Here, we review recent broad-scale assessments of tree disease risk, investigations of site and host preferences for several root rot pathogens, and regional historical analyses of pathogen outbreak in plantations. Crucial topics include fragmentation effects on pathogen spread and geophysical features that predispose forest patches to disease expression. Recent methodological developments facilitate the spatially explicit analysis of reciprocal coarse-scale relationships among hosts and pathogens. Landscape pathology studies fill a significant research gap in the context of our understanding of sustainable forest management, the introduction of exotic organisms and how climate change might affect the spread of disease.