Effects of Temperature and Drought Stress on Physiological Processes Associated With Oak Decline

Abstract

Oak decline is a term used to describe a sequence of events (decline syndrome) which is typically triggered by anabioticstress and subsequently involves other biotic and abiotic factors that cause the progressive deterioration and eventual death of a tree. Decline diseases lack a single causal agent, and in that way are different from diseases caused by one pathogen or by a single abioticinjury. Decline and premature death of oaks in the oak-dominated eastern deciduous forests have been documented in at least twenty-six separate reports over the past 140 years (Ammon et al., 1989). Drought-induced stress appears to trigger or contribute to the decline syndrome in many of these reports for the eastern United States (Beal,1926; Hursh and Haasis, 193 1; McIntyre and Schnur, 1936; True and Tyron, 1956; Gillespie, 1956; Fergus and Ibberson, 1956; Staley, 196.5; Lewis, 1981; Tainter et al., 1983; Law and Gott, 1987; Maass, 1989; Tainter et al., 1990; Myers and Killingsworth, 1992). Under environmental conditions in which water availability may limit growth, abnormally high temperatures can alter normal energy flows and can increase both respiration and transpiration. Temperature and water availability are among the most criticalabioticconditions that must remain within certain ranges for optimum growth of any species, and oaks are no exception. Temperature can influence, growth and development, metabolism, carbon translocation, enzyme action, water potential, and transpiration (Salisbury and Ross, 1978). Water probably provides the strongest influence on productivity of vegetation in forest ecosystems than any otherabioticfactor (Whittaker, 1975; Kozlowski, 1982).

Citation

Leininger, Theodor D. 1998. Effects of Temperature and Drought Stress on Physiological Processes Associated With Oak Decline. 1998 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. The Productivity & Sustainability of Southern Forest Ecosystems in a Changing Environment Edited by Mickler and Fox