Incorporating exposure to pitch canker disease to support management decisions of Pinus pinaster Ait. in the face of climate change

Climate change is gravely affecting forest ecosystems, resulting in large distribution shifts as well as in increasing infection diseases and biological invasions. Accordingly, forest management requires an evaluation of exposure to climate change that should integrate both its abiotic and biotic components. Here we address the implications of climate change in an emerging disease by analysing both the host species (Pinus pinaster, Maritime pine) and the pathogen’s (Fusarium circinatum, pitch canker) environmental suitability i.e. estimating the host’s risk of habitat loss and the disease`s future environmental range. We constrained our study area to the Spanish Iberian Peninsula, where accurate climate and pitch canker occurrence databases were available. While P. pinaster is widely distributed across the study area, the disease has only been detected in its north-central and north-western edges. We fitted species distribution models for the current distribution of the conifer and the disease. Then, these models were projected into nine Global Climate Models and two different climatic scenarios which totalled to 18 different future climate predictions representative of 2050. Based on the level of agreement among them, we created future suitability maps for the pine and for the disease independently, which were then used to assess exposure of current populations of P. pinaster to abiotic and biotic effects of climate change. Almost the entire distribution of P. pinaster in the Spanish Iberian Peninsula will be subjected to abiotic exposure likely to be driven by the predicted increase in drought events in the future. Furthermore, we detected a reduction in exposure to pitch canker that will be concentrated along the north-western edge of the study area. Setting up breeding programs is recommended in highly exposed and productive populations, while silvicultural methods and monitoring should be applied in those less productive, but still exposed, populations.