The biennial meeting of the IUFRO’s Working Party 7.02.09 – ‘Phytophthorain Forests and Natural Ecosystems’ was held on the Italian island of Sardinia from 17-25 October 2019. FABI postdoctoral Fellow Dr Tanay Bose participated at this conference and communicated his research in form of oral presentations and a poster.

The conference was preceded by a field trip to visit native and commercially managed forests of cork (Quercus suber) and holm oak (Quercus ilex) at various locations on the island. Both these tree species are iconic to the island. Harvesting cork from Q. suber is an important source of revenue to the inhabitants of Sardinia but climate change, coupled with various indigenous and introduced Phytophthora species, is steadily decreasing these native and commercial forests. 

During the field trip the participants were also introduced to the unique culture and history of the island. Sardinia includes several important archaeological sites. The island has archaeological remains from Nuragic settlements dating back to at least 17^th century BCE. During the field trip, all the participants visited one of the important archaeological sites on this island, Su Nuraxi at Barumini. 

The scientific communication section of this conference was held from 22-25 October at La Maddalena, an archipelago located north of Sardinia. There were more than 120 participants representing 35 countries. Seventy four oral presentations (including three keynote lectures) were divided into various sections, which included species detection, biodiversity, metabarcoding, ecology, disease detection and control. Every session of this conference included fantastic talks followed by an engaging group discussion. A whole session was dedicated to speed talks for participant who presented a poster. 

Oral presentations:

T Bose, MJ Wingfield, J Roux, M Vivas, TI Burgess. (2019). Phytophthora species associated with roots and soils from native and non-native forestry environments in South Africa. 

S Aghighi, F Sistani, Z Lori, S Sarikhan, T Bose. Diversity of oomycetes associated with declining Pinus spp. and Cupressus spp. In Kerman province, Iran. 

Poster presentation:

T Bose, J Roux, TI Burgess, C Shaw, MJ Wingfield. Pathogenicity of Phytophthora species on two commercially important non-native tree species from South Africa.