Predicting invasive pests and diseases in European forests
The workshop is for anyone with an interest in invasive disease spread.
Predicting invasive pests and diseases in European forests
10 January 2014 News
Providing industry partners and other interested stakeholders with hands-on experience of new models to predict the spread of invasive pests and diseases in Europe’s forests is the aim of an upcoming ISEFOR workshop on 19/20 February 2014 in Joensuu, Finland.
Participants will be introduced to new models that have been developed and tested over three years through the collaboration of pathologists, entomologists and mathematical modelers in ISEFOR, an EU funded research project on invasive pests and diseases in European forests.
The workshop is for anyone with an interest in invasive disease spread and wishing to know more about these latest models, specifically for participants who need:
- To predict tree pests and diseases for planning, investment, monitoring
- Reliable models with recognizable assumptions and outputs
- Information on invasive forest pests and pathogens under climate change
During the workshop, participants will be able to work with the models, getting to know them and deriving their own outputs. The model developers will also be on hand to demonstrate and explain the structure of these models. As an 8-hour workshop programed over two days, there will be plenty of informal time for participants to discuss model predictions and their needs with ISEFOR researchers and colleagues.
This is the final workshop from the 2010-2014 ISEFOR research project created to address the problems that will arise from: climate change impacts on forest ecosystem vitality; increasing threats from alien invasive pests and pathogens; and changing threats from indigenous pests and pathogens, or alien species already established in Europe.
ISEFOR researchers have worked together over three years analyzing threats to European forests from invasive pests and pathogens, including alien organisms, vulnerable hosts, trade pathways for disease spread and the use of sentinel tree nurseries in China. PEFC has been involved in ISEFOR from the beginning as a partner organization, providing the project with dissemination support.
Disease models include:
- Pinewood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus
- Ash dieback, Chalara fraxinea
- Pine pitch canker, Fusarium circinatum
- Dothistroma needle blight, Dothistroma septosporum
- Siberian moth Dendrolimus sibiricus
- Emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis
- Alder phytophtora