Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents Final report European Commission (DG ENV) 23rd January 2012 Project description CLIENT: European Commission (DG ENV) CONTRACT NUMBER: 070307/2010/574341/ ETU/ENV.B.1 REPORT TITLE: Final Report PROJECT NAME: Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents DATE: 23rd January 2012 AUTHORS: Dr. Anne Turbé, Bio Intelligence Service Dr. Ulrike Jana, Bio Intelligence Service Dr. Arianna de Toni, Bio Intelligence Service Dr. Stephen Woodward, Aberden University Prof. Axel Schopf, BOKU Dr. Sigrid Netherer, BOKU Pr. Per Angelstam, SLU Shailendra Mudgal, Bio Intelligence Service Dr. Pierre Sonigo, Bio Intelligence Service KEY CONTACTS: Anne Turbé + 33 (0) 1 53 90 11 80 anne.turbe @biois.com Or Pierre Sonigo + 33 (0) 1 53 90 11 80 [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We thank all the experts and stakeholders who kindly provided feedback during the course of this study. DISCLAIMER: This report contains the research conducted by the project team and is not to be perceived as the opinion of the European Commission. Please cite this publication as: BIO Intelligence Service (2011), Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents, Final Report prepared for European Commission (DG ENV) Photo credit: cover @ Vik Nanda 2 | Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents Table of Contents LIST OF ACRONYMS 10 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 21 1.1 Aim of this report 21 1.2 Managing forest ecosystems 21 1.3 State of EU forests 22 1.4 Disturbances in forest ecosystems 25 1.5 How to manage biotic risks 30 1.6 Structure of this report 31 CHAPTER 2: PANORAMA OF THE CURRENT RISKS CAUSED BY BIOTIC AGENTS TO THE DELIVERY OF GOODS AND SERVICES 33 2.1 Key points 33 2.2 Trends in damage to EU forests caused by biotic agents 34 2.2.1 Biotic damages to EU forests 34 2.2.2 Types of biotic agents 41 2.2.3 Spatial and temporal scale of damages 57 2.2.4 Trends in biotic agents over the past fifty years 59 2.2.5 Influence of forest factors on biotic occurrence and damage 65 2.2.6 Drivers of changing biotic agents distribution 68 2.3 Impacts and trends for selected biotic agents 74 2.3.1 Ips typographus 76 2.3.2 Anoplophora chinensis 93 2.3.3 Thaumetopoea pityocampa 102 2.3.4 Bursaphelenchus xylophilus 112 2.3.5 Ash dieback 119 2.3.6 Chestnut Canker 123 2.3.7 Dutch elm disease 128 2.3.8 Phytophtora ramorum 138 CHAPTER 3: TOWARDS ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT FOR ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION 149 3.1 Key points 149 3.2 Natural forest dynamics as a benchmark 149 3.2.1 Successional dynamics – six development stages 151 Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents | 3 3.2.2 Cohort dynamics 154 3.2.3 Gap dynamics 154 3.3 Forest and other wooded land management in Europe 155 3.3.1 Silvicultural systems 156 3.3.2 Traditional cultural landscape management regimes 159 3.4 How forest disturbance regimes and forest management systems match 160 CHAPTER 4: FUTURE TRENDS IN BIOTIC DISTURBANCES 165 4.1 Key points 165 4.2 Climate change scenarios and potential impacts on the EU forests 166 4.2.1 Boreal forests 166 4.2.2 Atlantic forests 166 4.2.3 Continental forests 167 4.2.4 Mediterranean forests 167 4.2.5 Mountainous forests 167 4.2.6 Summary of likely climate change impacts on EU forests 168 4.3 Influence of climatic factors on biotic agents 169 4.3.1 Effects of temperature increase 170 4.3.2 Changed patterns of precipitation and humidity 171 4.3.3 Frequency and intensity of storms, droughts or fire events 173 4.3.4 Increase of atmospheric CO2 173 4.4 Impact of climate change on risk of outbreak and species distributions 174 4.4.1 Possible consequences of climate change with regard to the risk of pest outbreaks 175 4.4.2 Changes in species distribution 176 4.5 Conclusions for managing forest biotic risk as climate changes 177 CHAPTER 5: INFORMATION, MONITORING, EARLY-WARNING SYSTEMS 181 5.1 Key points 181 5.2 Monitoring systems 182 5.2.1 Monitoring and inventory systems with a European coverage 182 5.2.2 Monitoring systems with a national, regional or local coverage 191 5.3 Information systems 193 5.3.1 Information systems with a European coverage 193 5.3.2 Information systems with a national, regional or local coverage 198 5.4 Early warning systems 200 5.5 Best practices for information, monitoring and early warning of biotic agents 201 5.5.1 Case study: the French Forest Health Department monitoring French network 202 4 | Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents 5.5.2 Case study of the Swedish forest health monitoring system – a multi-dimensional system with an early warning function 205 5.5.3 Case study: the EWS for forest health threats in the US 209 5.6 Conclusions 212 5.6.1 Key characteristics for an efficient monitoring of forest biotic threats 212 5.6.2 What can the EU do to improve forest health monitoring? 213 CHAPTER 6: SYNTHESIS OF KNOWLEDGE REGARDING FUTURE CHANGES IN BIOTIC DISTURBANCES 215 CHAPTER 7: REFERENCES 219 ANNEX 1: CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN FOREST TYPE OF THE EEA AND THE MORE GENERAL CLASSIFICATION USED THROUGHOUT THE REPORT 259 ANNEX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE SENT FOR THE DATA COLLECTION ON INFORMATION, MONITORING AND EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS 260 ANNEX 3: IDENTIFICATION OF THE EXPERTS CONTACTED DURING THE SURVEY 263 ANNEX 4: MAIN CHARACTERISTICS AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NFIS OF 10 EU COUNTRIES 264 ANNEX 5: PRESENTATION OF THE 17 NATIONAL MONITORING SYSTEMS (15 FROM EU AND 1 FROM US) 266 ANNEX 6: CORRELATION BETWEEN SCIENTIFIC AND COMMON NAMES OF THE BIOTIC AGENTS MENTIONED IN THE STUDY 270 Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents | 5 List of Tables Table 1-1 Number of forest biotic agents listed in the annexes of the Plant Health Directive 28 Table 2-1 Damage caused by the top ten wood-borers in Europe (Grégoire and Evans 2004) 36 Table 2-2 Estimated annual costs of biotic damages to Swedish forest in relation to a severe wind storm event in 2005 (Witzell 2009) 37 Table 2-3 Annual cost of damage by alien insects and pathogens (estimation given in Euro/ha/year) 38 Table 2-4 Top-30 biotic agents in EU forests classified by category (from the most to the less damaging) 43 Table 2-5 Successful establishment by phytophagous insects in Europe (Mattson et al. 2007) 55 Table 2-6 Assessment of the predisposition to bark beetle infestation 89 Table 2-7 Environmental traits exposing forests to low, medium or high probability of bark beetle infestation. Darker background colour reflects higher importance (weighting) of the different indicators. Lighter colour reflect smaller importance or smaller reliability 90 Table 2-8 Guidelines for bark beetle management 92 Table 2-9 Guidelines for bark beetle management in buffer zones of protected forest areas 92 Table 2-10 Stand and landscape characteristics featuring Thaumetopoea pityocampa outbreaks and prophylactic management options 110 Table 2-11 Monochamus species present in European forests and potential vectors of Bursaphelenchus xylophilus: geographical distribution in Europe 114 Table 2-12 Relative susceptibility of European Pinaceae to killing by Portuguese isolates of Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (adapted from Evans 2007) 115 Table 2-13 List of proven hosts for Phytophthora ramorum. 140 Table 3-1 Tentative summary of the profile of different natural disturbance regimes according to forest type (see Annex 1 and EEA 2008) 151 Table 3-2 Overview of the range of disturbance regimes in different forest types 160 Table 4-1 Synthesis of the expected consequences of the climate change on the different forest types 169 Table 5-1 Indicators of the forest health measures by some MS during the NFIs. 184 Table 5-2 Information systems identified with European coverage 194 Table 5-3 National information systems identified, and biotic agents targeted 199 6 | Disturbances of EU forests caused by biotic agents List of Figures Figure 1-1 Relationship between the three components of risk and the management for a particular forest good or service (modified after Jactel et al. 2009) 29 Figure 1-2 Overview of the different chapters of this report. 32 Figure 2-1 Composition of the Total Economic Value of Mediterranean Forests (Merlo and Croitoru 2005) NWFP: non wood forest products; WFP wood forest products 35 Figure 2-2 Characteristics of Zeiraphera improbana and diniana outbreak events over the past millennium (a) return time record calculated from outbreaks of different intensity (in terms of reduction of wood intensity), and (b) relative frequency distribution of the return time data, averaging 9 years (Esper et al. 2007) 57 Figure 2-3 Volume of wood damaged by (a) storms, (b) biotic agents (except bark beetle), (c) bark beetle, as reported from 1850-2000, and scaled-up at European level for 1950-2000. (d) volume of wood damaged by biotic and abiotic agents* in Germany since 1800 (Schelhaas et al. 2003, Schelhaas 2008) 61 Figure 2-4 Evolution in the proportion of damage causes on the 26 most abundant European tree species between 1995 and 2005 (Jactel et al. 2005) 62 Figure 2-5 Average number of Ips typographus caught by pheromone traps in four areas of northern Sweden from 1995 to 2010. Incidence of the most important biotic and abiotic causes of damage on the Level I plots in Finland from 1995 to 2006 (Wulff et al. 2011; Nevelainen et al.