Rosa Martins et al. 2023. Beech leaf disease prevalent throughout Purchase College’s Blind Brook forest buffer
By Melissa Rosa Martins, Shannon DeCillis, and Samantha DeTurris
Abstract
The American beech faces a new disease, beech leaf disease (BLD), caused by the nematode Litylenchus crenatae ssp. mccanni. Discovered in 2018 in Ohio, there is currently no known cure, and little is known about BLD. Water and human movement may be factors contributing to the spread of BLD. We studied the beech-maple-birch forest buffer of Blind Brook on the Purchase College campus in Purchase, NY, collecting data on the percentage of each trees’ leaves affected by BLD, distance from running water and roads, and diameter at breast height. Our results show BLD is widespread in this forest, and possibly campuswide, but distance from roads and DBH do not seem to cause trees to contain more symptomatic leaves. Distance from running water was unexpectedly slightly positively correlated with BLD. Our study brings to light how far BLD has spread from its origin in Ohio and suggests that other factors should be studied to determine what causes trees to be infected with BLD.