Roles and Interactions of Insects and Microbes in Forest Systems

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecophysiology and Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2019)

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Nematology, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
Interests: population dynamics and integrated pest management of forest insects; tree resistance to insect herbivores; insect management in nurseries and seed orchards
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forests are biotic communities comprised of multiple interacting species. These communities can change in response to natural and/or anthropogenic disturbances such as succession, the arrival of invasive species and climate change. Along with trees, forest communities contain insects and microbes with multiple roles that may be independent of one another but are often interactive. These organisms can impact the ability of each species to survive and perform within a forest system as well as influencing the overall system dynamics. Some insects and microbes are intimately involved in ecosystem processes, such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation and pollination. Some are long-established community members with known relationships that can affect forest health and management (e.g., bark beetles, defoliators, root rots), but these relationships are changing in the presence of anthropogenic disturbances. Other recently-arrived invasive species have changed community structure and dynamics (e.g., European woodwasp and sudden oak death). From a forest ecology and management perspective, these relationships and interactions require further investigation. This Special Issue seeks manuscripts that address the interactive roles of insects and microbes in forest systems as well as how those organisms and their roles are changing.

Prof. Stephen Cook
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest processes
  • forest dynamics
  • community ecology
  • succession
  • disturbance
  • invasive species

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 12805 KiB  
Article
Three Main Genes in the MAPK Cascade Involved in the Chinese Jujube-Phytoplasma Interaction
by Zhiguo Liu, Zhihui Zhao, Chaoling Xue, Lixin Wang, Lili Wang, Chunfang Feng, Liman Zhang, Zhe Yu, Jin Zhao and Mengjun Liu
Forests 2019, 10(5), 392; https://doi.org/10.3390/f10050392 - 2 May 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2684
Abstract
Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) is an important economic forest species and multipurpose fruit tree in the family of Rhamnaceae. Phytoplasmas are significant prokaryotic pathogens, associated with more than 1000 plant diseases. Jujube witches’ broom disease (JWB) is a typical phytoplasma disease, [...] Read more.
Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) is an important economic forest species and multipurpose fruit tree in the family of Rhamnaceae. Phytoplasmas are significant prokaryotic pathogens, associated with more than 1000 plant diseases. Jujube witches’ broom disease (JWB) is a typical phytoplasma disease, caused by ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma ziziphi’. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades are highly universal signal transduction modules and play crucial roles in regulating innate immune responses in plants. Thus, in the current study, systematical expression profiles of 10 ZjMPK and 4 ZjMPKK genes were conducted in plantlets with JWB disease, plantlets recovered from JWB disease, the tissues showing different disease symptoms, and resistant/susceptible cultivars infected by JWB phytoplasma. We found that most ZjMPK and ZjMKK genes exhibited significant up- or down-regulation expression under phytoplasma infection, but the top three differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were ZjMPK2, ZjMKK2 and ZjMKK4, which showed the biggest times of gene’s significant difference expression in all materials. Based on STRING database analysis, ZjMKK2 and ZjMPK2 were involved in the same plant-pathogen interaction pathway, and Yeast two-hybrid screening showed that ZjMKK2 could interact with ZjMPK2. Finally, we deduced a pathway of jujube MAPK cascades which response to ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma ziziphi’ infection. Our study presents the first gene-family-wide investigation on the systematical expression analysis of MAPK and MAPKK genes in Chinese jujube under phytoplasma infection. These results provide valuable information for the further research on the signaling pathway of phytoplasma infection in Chinese jujube. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Roles and Interactions of Insects and Microbes in Forest Systems)
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