Pine wilt in response to meteorological hazardous events during the climate change in China and Japan

During the process of climate change in East Asia since the 1980s, increasing climate influence and meteorological hazardous events occurred, such as persistent drought, strong typhoon, and intercurrent meteorological extremes. The maximum temperature and persistence of rain-free days rose during the most recent 30 years in many cities in China. The combination of these extremes may evidently decrease the threshold of tree responses to the extreme stresses, even cause pine wilt in the area. By studying the geographic distribution of pine wilt disease, climate change characteristics, and the relationship between resin excretion and meteorological hazardous events, the relationship between pine wilt events and the summer droughts and strong typhoons in East Asia was investigated. The spatial and temporal consistency of the prevalence of pine wilt disease with climate change characteristics in both China and Japan suggests that pine wilt is related to local environmental variance. After extreme summer drought and strong typhoons, the ability of pines to excrete oleoresin was often reduced, and deaths were observed. The special adaptive characteristics of pines to meteorological hazard events during climate change, such as stopping or reducing resin excretion, may be the key of their wilt. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015