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National Invasive Species Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
  1. Home
  2. Terrestrial Invasives
  3. Terrestrial Pathogens and Diseases
  4. Oak Wilt

Oak Wilt

Scientific Name

Bretziella fagacearum (Bretz) Z.W. deBeer, Marinc., T.A. Duong & M.J. Wingf., comb. nov. (de Beer et al. 2017)

Common Name

Oak wilt

Synonym

Formerly known as Ceratocystis fagacearum

Native To

Unknown; the disease is currently only found in the United States, but it may have originated in Mexico, Central America, or South America (Juzwik et al. 2008)

Date of U.S. Introduction

First discovered in 1942 (Juzwik et al. 2008)

Means of Introduction

Unknown (Juzwik et al. 2008)

Impact

Fungal disease of oaks (Quercus spp.) that can rapidly kill susceptible species (particularly red oaks) (Koch et al. 2010)

Oak Wilt

Oak wilt, leaf symptoms

Credit

Photo by Joseph O'Brien; USDA, Forest Service

Source
Invasive.org

Find more images

Spotlights

  • Oak Wilt in the Northeastern and Midwestern States

    • 2022

    • USDA. FS. Eastern Region.

    • Oak wilt is complex, with a high degree of variability in distribution, severity, and associated management options. This publication provides a detailed overview of oak wilt and is intended to help natural resource managers in the Northeast and Midwest choose the most appropriate tools for a given situation. Using the Story Map format, information has been organized into selectable sections/tabs for easy navigation and exploration.
      See also: Oak Wilt StoryMap: A Regional View of Oak Wilt and its Management

Distribution / Maps / Survey Status

  • Alien Forest Pest Explorer (AFPE)

    • USDA. FS. Northern Research Station.

    • The Alien Forest Pest Explorer (AFPE) is an interactive web tool which provides detailed spatial data describing pest distributions and host inventory estimates for damaging, non-indigenous forest insect and disease pathogens currently established in the U.S. The database is maintained as a joint effort of Purdue University, the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Health Protection.

  • Pest Tracker - Survey Status of Oak Wilt

    • USDA. APHIS. Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey. National Agricultural Pest Information System.

Videos

All Resources

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Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Council or Task Force
Partnership
Federal Government
International Government
State and Local Government
Academic
Professional
Citations