Nematode infestation, a potential threat to Indian forests
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Nematode infestation, a potential threat to Indian forests Mujeebur Rahman Khan1 Received: 11 October 2019 / Revised: 11 October 2019 / Accepted: 30 March 2020 © Indian Phytopathological Society 2020
Abstract Nematode infestation in the forest flora has remained a neglected area of research in India. The limited information available on this aspect shows that plant nematodes pose a serious threat to forest plants. The ectoparasitic nematodes being integral component of soil fauna, are an important cause of concern for forest flora because of their unrecognizable and debilitating impact that leads to a slow tree decline and dieback. Endoparasitic nematodes, such as root-knot nematode, pine wilt nematode, flower bud and leaf gall nematode inflict specific symptoms and serious plant damage. Further, there is a potential risk of introduction of pine wilt nematode in the Himalayan region under Indian territory, through the import of coniferous wood and wood products from the nematode prone countries especially from China directly or via Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar etc. The situation warrants immediate attention of plant pathologists and nematologists to ascertain the status of nematode infestation in forest flora in the country and to formulate specific recommendations for an immediate line of action by the government agencies. The present review through B. B. Mundkur Memorial Award lecture has offered me an opportunity to highlight the significance of nematode infestation in India forests, before a wide and relevant scientific fraternity of the country. Keywords Plant parasitic nematode · Angiospermic trees · Coniferous trees · Nematode disease · Indian forest
Introduction Forests are one of the important sustainers of life on the earth and are spread to one-third of the world’s terrestrial area, approximately 3952 million hectares. The forest cover comprises of both the natural forest (95%) and planted forest (5%), and in general, the tropical forest (47%) and boreal forest (33%) take the major share, followed by subtropical (9%), and temperate (11%) forests. The global forests have shrunk by 40% since the beginning of agriculture around 11,000 years ago (Padma 2018), and its 75% decline has taken place during the last two centuries. The forests were largely cleared to meets the wood demands and to grow food crops. The demands for wood, food and other materials have been on a continuous increase to meet the fuel and house building requirements of burgeoning human population. During 2000–2017 the global wood harvest accounted for 4684–5692 million m3 (FAOSTAT 2017), and around half of this wood was used as fuel. The decreasing forest cover has * Mujeebur Rahman Khan [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202 002, India
led to a change in the biodiversity, creating ecological imbalance and several climate-related consequences. In India, 21.54% (70.82 million hectares) of the total geographical
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