An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Provides access to all site resources, with the option to search by species common and scientific names. Resources can be filtered by Subject, Resource Type, Location, or Source. Search Help
California Department of Food and Agriculture. Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Program.
The Asian citrus psyllid and citrus greening (Huanglongbing) could be a death sentence for California citrus trees - but with support from California residents, we can save the citrus trees that we all know and love.
A chance discovery in an Ohio woodland has turned into a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency, and multi-national effort to piece together a puzzle and understand a scourge that is killing trees by the thousands in northern states east of the Great Plains. The leaves of young beech trees are failing somehow. Scientists have figured out what causes the malady; it’s the 'how' that has them scratching their heads. Beech trees are one of the most common trees in America's northern and northeastern forests. Their nut crop feeds birds and other animals, and its wood is prized for bentwood furniture. The symptoms of beech leaf disease were plain to see – sunken dark spots on the leaves, which eventually died – but opinions differed on the cause. Was it bacterial, fungal, or viral? Then, a plant pathologist working for the State of Ohio noticed wiggly things in the leaf lesions. They turned out to be nematodes, microscopic worms that live in the soil, that had somehow managed to make it to the tree canopy 40-50 feet above ground. Nematode samples were sent to Beltsville, MD, for analysis and identification at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory in Beltsville, MD. The nematode, Litylenchus crenatae, turned out to be native to Japan – the first population of L. crenatae found in the Western Hemisphere. The curious thing is that it's not a tree-killer in Japan.
Across the Pacific, wildfire poses a major threat to biological and cultural resources, and the threat is only predicted to become larger with climate change. In this talk, graduate students Kevin Faccenda and Kelsey Brock discuss a new tool and methodology for predicting the fire risk of invasive species before they enter a region so that management efforts can be focused on the highest risk incipient species.
This tool uses data collected from the primary literature as well as a machine learning model trained on expert survey data to predict fire risk. Their team examined this risk in a spatial context by modeling the distribution of multiple invasive plants and climatic conditions that promote wildfire across the main Hawaiian Islands. Models were created based on current-day climate conditions as well potential conditions at the end of the century to under climate change.
North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. North Carolina Forest Service.
Emerald ash borer, laurel wilt disease, thousand cankers disease, and the European gypsy moth are likely to be brought into North Carolina in or on firewood. The use of local firewood is an important factor in preventing the spread of potentially devastating invasive species to our state's forests. Please keep this in mind as you prepare for your outdoor recreation activities. See Forest Health Invasive Pest Maps for more information about pest monitoring.
WHISPers, a Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership event reporting system with current and historic information on wildlife morbidity or mortality events in North America. Events typically involve five or more sick or dead wild animals observed in the same general location and time period. This information is collected opportunistically and provided here by multiple State, Federal, and other agencies to enhance collective understanding of disease in wildlife populations.