Washington: According to a latest survey, the largest ever conducted on the species found that the ash tree would wipe out in Europe. The fungal disease ash dieback along with an emerald ash borer is found to be the reason which is killing the ash trees, BBC reported.
According to the research, published in the Journal of Ecology, the British countryside will never look the same again. The study also pointed out that that the ash will most likely be ‘eliminated’ in Europe.
This could mirror the way Dutch elm disease largely wiped out the elm in the 1980s. Ash trees are a key part of the treescape of Britain. You don’t have to go to the countryside to see them. In and around towns and cities there are 2.2 million. In woodland, only the oak is more common.
However, according to a review led by Dr Peter Thomas of Keele University and published in the Journal of Ecology, “between the fungal disease ash dieback and a bright green beetle called the emerald ash borer, it is likely that almost all ash trees in Europe will be wiped out - just as the elm was largely eliminated by Dutch elm disease”.
Ash dieback, also known as Chalara, is a disease that was first seen in Eastern Europe in 1992. It now affects more than 2 million sq km, from Scandinavia to Italy. It was identified in England in 2012 in a consignment of imported infected trees. It has since spread from Norfolk and Suffolk to South Wales. Caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, it kills the leaves, then the branches, trunk and eventually the whole tree. It has the potential to destroy 95% of ash trees in the UK.
