Biology, Diagnosis and Management of Forest Phytoplasmas
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (24 August 2023) | Viewed by 531
Special Issue Editor
Interests: phytoplasma disease; molecular identification; classification; phylogeny; marker genes; forest plants; small fruit crops; insect vectors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Forest plant ecosystems are economically important for timber industry, food industry (wild berries), pharmacy (medicine plants) etc. Plant-pathogenic phytoplasmas can cause serious plant diseases, affecting natural ecosystems and plant biodiversity. Phytoplasmas can be spread from wild forest plants to agricultural plants and vice versa by phloem-feeding insect vectors, mainly leafhoppers, planthoppers, and psyllids. Furthermore, global warming introduces insects and diseases to new geographic locations. Phytoplasmas are wall-less unculturable bacteria that belong to class Mollicutes. They are classified in groups and subgroups based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences. More than 40 16Sr groups and about 300 subgroups have been delineated on this basis. About 50 provisional ‘Candidatus (Ca.) Phytoplasma’ species have been described. A wide range of plant families and species are susceptible to phytoplasma infection. Phytoplasma plant disease symptoms vary from mild to lethal, and are generally described as plant yellows. Phytoplasmas can cause plant stunt, plant decline and death, shoot proliferation, witches’ broom, little leaves, yellow, reddish or white leaves, virescence and phyllody of flowers, various malformations etc. The most investigated phytoplasmas are causing symptomatic diseases in agricultural and other economically important plants. However there should be many still undiscovered ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma species‘, phytoplasma 16Sr groups and subgroups in wild forests.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Forest pathology—phytoplasma-caused diseases of forest plants, including trees, shrubs, wild pome, stone, small fruit, nuts, and medicinal plants, and other wild forest herbal plants;
- Urban forests and phytoplasmas;
- Forest entomology—phytoplasma insect vectors;
- Phytoplasma diseases and forest ecology, management, and restoration;
- Phytoplasma diseases and climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation in forests.
Dr. Deividas Valiunas
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- phytoplasma diseases
- forest trees
- forest shrubs
- forest fruit plants
- forest herbal plants
- phytoplasma insect vectors
- phytoplasma disease management
- climate change and phytoplasma diseases
