Effects of landscape pattern on the damage of pine wilt disease in the head region of the Three Gorges Reservior

Investigating the effects of landscape patterns on PWD severity can facilitate the construction of landscape ecological security patterns and further contribute to long-term regional prevention and control strategies. Based on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing data and forest resource inventory data, we adopted correlation analysis method and hierarchical segmentation in the linear mixed-effects model to evaluate the impact of landscape patterns on PWD at both the landscape and patch levels in the head region of the Three Gorges Reservoir.

The results indicated that at the landscape level, larger patch sizes and higher landscape fragmentation were associated with lower PWD severity in the region. Area characteristics and aggregation explained 45.9% and 29.3% of the variation in disease density, respectively. At the patch level, the fragmentation of pure pine forest (host) patches was significantly positively correlated with disease density, while more regular patch shapes were associated with greater PWD severity.