Visuals UC Davis professor of plant pathology David Rizzo will report his findings in a thick, mixed grove of dying and healthy oak trees. He will bring laboratory samples of the culprit that attacks the trees. Using a map, Brice McPherson, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, will discuss the geographical distribution of the syndrome. For five years, a mysterious disease named Sudden Oak Death has been killing coast live oaks, black oaks and tanoaks on the California coast. A tree bleeds black or dark-red sap, its bark becomes spotted with black and its leaves turn brown.
Beetles quickly infest the tree, and the tree dies within a few weeks.
The issue is particularly urgent because the dead oak trees pose an extreme fire hazard. They could also rot and fall on power lines, roads or buildings. The death of the oak forests also harms the many plants and animals that share the oaks' habitat and rely on them for food. Rizzo is a member of a universitywide research team assembled about six months ago to tackle the problem. The team includes specialists in entomology, pathology, remote sensing and monitoring, urban forestry and field ecology.