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Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior

At least 10% of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction and pathogens are increasingly implicated in tree threats. Coextinction and threats to affiliates as a consequence of the loss or decline of their host trees is a poorly understood phenomenon. Ash dieback is an emerging infectio...

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Autores principales: Jönsson, Mari T., Thor, Göran
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3458109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23049840
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045701
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author Jönsson, Mari T.
Thor, Göran
author_facet Jönsson, Mari T.
Thor, Göran
author_sort Jönsson, Mari T.
collection PubMed
description At least 10% of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction and pathogens are increasingly implicated in tree threats. Coextinction and threats to affiliates as a consequence of the loss or decline of their host trees is a poorly understood phenomenon. Ash dieback is an emerging infectious disease causing severe dieback of common ash Fraxinus excelsior throughout Europe. We utilized available empirical data on affiliate epiphytic lichen diversity (174 species and 17,800 observations) among 20 ash dieback infected host tree populations of F. excelsior on the island Gotland in the Baltic Sea, Sweden. From this, we used structured scenario projections scaled with empirical data of ash dieback disease to generate probabilistic models for estimating local and regional lichen coextinction risks. Average coextinction probabilities (Ā) were 0.38 (95% CI ±0.09) for lichens occurring on F. excelsior and 0.14 (95% CI ±0.03) when considering lichen persistence on all tree species. Ā was strongly linked to local disease incidence levels and generally increasing with lichen host specificity to F. excelsior and decreasing population size. Coextinctions reduced affiliate community viability, with significant local reductions in species richness and shifts in lichen species composition. Affiliates were projected to become locally extirpated before their hosts, illuminating the need to also consider host tree declines. Traditionally managed open wooded meadows had the highest incidence of ash dieback disease and significantly higher proportions of affiliate species projected to go extinct, compared with unmanaged closed forests and semi-open grazed sites. Most cothreatened species were not previously red-listed, which suggest that tree epidemics cause many unforeseen threats to species. Our analysis shows that epidemic tree deaths represent an insidious, mostly overlooked, threat to sessile affiliate communities in forested environments. Current conservation and management strategies must account for secondary extinctions associated with epidemic tree death.
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spelling pubmed-34581092012-10-03 Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior Jönsson, Mari T. Thor, Göran PLoS One Research Article At least 10% of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction and pathogens are increasingly implicated in tree threats. Coextinction and threats to affiliates as a consequence of the loss or decline of their host trees is a poorly understood phenomenon. Ash dieback is an emerging infectious disease causing severe dieback of common ash Fraxinus excelsior throughout Europe. We utilized available empirical data on affiliate epiphytic lichen diversity (174 species and 17,800 observations) among 20 ash dieback infected host tree populations of F. excelsior on the island Gotland in the Baltic Sea, Sweden. From this, we used structured scenario projections scaled with empirical data of ash dieback disease to generate probabilistic models for estimating local and regional lichen coextinction risks. Average coextinction probabilities (Ā) were 0.38 (95% CI ±0.09) for lichens occurring on F. excelsior and 0.14 (95% CI ±0.03) when considering lichen persistence on all tree species. Ā was strongly linked to local disease incidence levels and generally increasing with lichen host specificity to F. excelsior and decreasing population size. Coextinctions reduced affiliate community viability, with significant local reductions in species richness and shifts in lichen species composition. Affiliates were projected to become locally extirpated before their hosts, illuminating the need to also consider host tree declines. Traditionally managed open wooded meadows had the highest incidence of ash dieback disease and significantly higher proportions of affiliate species projected to go extinct, compared with unmanaged closed forests and semi-open grazed sites. Most cothreatened species were not previously red-listed, which suggest that tree epidemics cause many unforeseen threats to species. Our analysis shows that epidemic tree deaths represent an insidious, mostly overlooked, threat to sessile affiliate communities in forested environments. Current conservation and management strategies must account for secondary extinctions associated with epidemic tree death. Public Library of Science 2012-09-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3458109/ /pubmed/23049840 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045701 Text en © 2012 Jönsson, Thor http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Jönsson, Mari T.
Thor, Göran
Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior
title Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior
title_full Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior
title_fullStr Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior
title_full_unstemmed Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior
title_short Estimating Coextinction Risks from Epidemic Tree Death: Affiliate Lichen Communities among Diseased Host Tree Populations of Fraxinus excelsior
title_sort estimating coextinction risks from epidemic tree death: affiliate lichen communities among diseased host tree populations of fraxinus excelsior
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3458109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23049840
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045701
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