October 8, 2025 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm CDT
The polyphagous shot-hole borer (PSHB) is a tiny but devastating invasive beetle that poses a major threat to urban forests and natural ecosystems. First detected in California in 2003 and more recently in Western Australia, PSHB carries a fungal pathogen that disrupts water and nutrient flow in trees, leading to branch dieback and, in severe cases, tree death.
Join us for this insightful webinar as Dr. Shannon Lynch shares lessons learned from decades of PSHB management in California—including surveillance, host tree impacts, and community engagement strategies—and how these experiences are shaping Western Australia’s response to this emerging threat.
Dr. Shannon Lynch is an Assistant Professor of Forest Pathology and Plant Disease Ecology at the University of California Davis in the Department of Plant Pathology. Her career has been dedicated to effectively responding to emergent pests and pathogens as drivers of global change in forest ecosystems. She develops new analytical approaches that merge large-scale monitoring with tools from phylogenetic ecology and climate science to create predictive epidemiological models of the spread of novel pests and pathogens over heterogeneous landscapes. She complements this work by combining culture-dependent approaches with metagenomics to examine how tree microbiomes shape host resilience to destructive pathogens. Finally, she combines analytical and community-based approaches to understand the intersecting impacts of environmental injustice, urban forest pathogens, and climate change on disadvantaged communities in cities and urban forest systems.