Pine Wilt in Japan: From First Incidence to the Present

Abstract

Before pine wilt disease brought devastation to the majority of pine forests in Japan, most countryside forests, especially those in southwestern Japan, were dominated by Japanese red pine, Pinus densiflora. Actually, vegetation ecologists classified the flora of the southwestern region of Japan as a P. densiflora-Quercus serrata zone. Recently, however, it has become very difficult to find healthy pine trees in our surrounding mountains. The tiny, 1-mm-long, pine wood nematode (PWN) has dramatically changed our familiar flora.