In recent years, many abiotic and biotic factors have negatively impacted the health status of Ulmus glabra trees. Based on the syntaxonomic analysis of vegetation and a set of laboratory diagnostic studies, an attempt was made to isolate the catalysing factors and identify the causative agents of pathogenic processes that lead to the weakening and death of individuals of the U. glabra coenopopulation. The aim of the research was to evaluate the current health condition of trees of the relict coenopopulation of U. glabra, identify the factors of their weakening and dieback, study the pathogenesis and aetiology of the disease and experimentally confirm its causative agent.
Classical geobotanical and silvicultural, special microbiological (in particular, bacteriological analysis), mycological, and statistical research methods were used in the work.
Based on many years of research in the Pokutsky Carpathians, typical symptoms and signs of bacterial infection of U. glabra individuals resistant to Dutch elm disease were identified and described. It has been found that the current threat to old (100 or more years) U. glabra trees is a systemic vascular parenchymal disease known as bacterial wetwood. It has been studied that the drying of trees develops from the upper part of the crowns, and later, characteristic longitudinal cracks are formed on the trunks. In the active phase of the disease, there is a fountain-like release of exudate, and wet rot with a typical sour smell of fermentation appears. It was investigated and experimentally confirmed that, based on the signs of infection and the set of main characteristics, isolates of bacteria from the wood of diseased trees of U. glabra belong to the causative agent of the disease – the phytopathogenic bacterium – polybiotroph Lelliottia nimipressuralis (Carter 1945) Brady et al. 2013.
| DOI | 10.2478/ffp-2024-0028 |
|---|---|
| Source | Folia Forestalia Polonica, Series A – Forestry, 2024, Vol. 66 (4), 371–382 |
| Print ISSN | 0071-6677 |
| Online ISSN |
2199-5907 |
| Type of article |
original article |
| Original title |
Bacterial wetwood of Ulmus glabra Huds. in the relict coenopopulation of the Pokutsky Carpathians (Ukraine)Bacterial wetwood of Ulmus glabra Huds. in the relict coenopopulation of the Pokutsky Carpathians (Ukraine) |
| Publisher | © 2024 Author(s). This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
| Date | 04/12/2024 |
