Diagnosis in forest protection

Diagnosis in forest protection is the detection of symptoms that differ from the normal state and the identification of the abiotic and biotic factors that cause these symptoms. Potential abiotic risk factors such as storm, snow, frost, drought and sunburn are often easily identified by their symptoms or by analysing the weather conditions at the time of damage. In Central Europe wildfires are almost exclusively caused by humans and are similarly obvious, although the identification of the responsible person usually requires forensic measures and is rarely successful.

The diagnosis of organisms is often more difficult and different objects such as

• the organism itself and its different development stages,
• the infestation characteristics (e. g. feeding traces and larval galleries),
• feces,
• tracks,
• reactions of the infested plants (e. g. callus formation, gall development, resin excretion and leaf discoloration) as well as
• reactions of other members of the ecosystem (e. g. more frequent occurrence of antagonists, plough by wild boars and wood pecker pecking)

are used to identify the causal agent.