During recent years, oak decline has been widely spread across Brant’s oak (Quercus Brantii Lindl.) stands in the Zagros Mountains, Western Iran, which caused large-area forest dieback in several sites. Mapping the intensity and spatial distribution of forest dieback is essential for developing management and control strategies. This study evaluated a range of geostatistical and interpolation m...

Approximately 50,000 ha of native wet Metrosideros forest on the island of Hawai'i experienced a drastic reduction (dieback) of the tree canopy between 1954 and 1977. Two general hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain this phenomenon: 1) Metrosideros dieback has resulted from recently introduced pathogens, and 2) the dieback has naturally occurred previously in Hawai'i, and is rel...

Oak decline poses a substantial threat to forest health in the Ozark Highlands of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, where coupled with diseases and insect infestations, it has damaged large tracts of forest lands. Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) crown health indicators (e.g. crown dieback, etc.), collected by the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, provide a...

Mountain forests in National park Bohemian Forest (Czech Republic) were affected by bark beetle attack and windthrows in 2004-2008, followed by an extensive tree dieback. We evaluated changes in the biochemistry of the uppermost soil horizons with the emphasis on carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling in a near-natural spruce (Picea abies) mountain forest after the forest dieback, and compared it ...

Koa (Acacia koa) forests are found across broad environmental gradients in the Hawai'ian Islands. Previous studies have identified koa forest health problems and dieback at the plot level, but landscape level patterns remain unstudied. The availability of high-resolution satellite images from the new GeoEye1 satellite offers the opportunity to conduct landscape-level assessments of forest healt...

The amount of conspicuous canopy dieback in all central Westland southern rata-kamahi forests east of the Alpine Fault, between 500 m altitude and treeline, was assessed and mapped from aerial photographs taken in 1984-85 and verified by aerial reconnaissance of selected areas in 1988. At least 20% of all canopy trees, predominantly southern rata (Metrosideros umbellata) and Hall's totara (Podo...

This paper reviews and discusses the literature pertaining to a proposed ecological study of a catastrophic dying of native Metrosideros (Myrtaceae) forest which occurred on windward East Maui in the Hawaiian Islands during the first decade of this century. This dieback event was documented by several workers, most notably H.L. Lyon, and became known as the Maui Forest Trouble. The geology, cli...

Massive tree dieback has occurred periodically in the Hawaiian montane rain forest. The species mainly involved is Metrosideros polymorpha, which is the prevailing upper canopy tree species throughout most of this forest on all high Hawaiian islands. The canopy dieback occurs in stands over the entire spectrum of sites, from well-drained lava flows over nutritionally rich volcanic ash to perman...

Pervasive forest mortality is expected to increase in future decades as a result of increasing temperatures. Climate-induced forest dieback can have consequences on ecosystem services, potentially mediated by changes in forest structure and understory community composition that emerge in response to tree death. Although many dieback events around the world have been documented in recent years, ...