Sudden Oak Death is the greatest environmental catastrophe to strike North America, since Chestnut Blight. The disease affects about 1000 km of coastal forests on the West Coast. The cover image shows the pathogen (top left image)  and disease symptoms at three different scales: individual bay laurel leaves supporting sporulation of the pathogen, bleeding stem bark cankers  caused by infections that girdle individual oak trees, an entire stand of tanoaks killed by Sudden Oak Death (tanoak mortality close to 100%, trees that are alive are not tanoaks). Full open access paper here. 

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