Become a member
Membership of IUFRO is open to any institution concerned with the promotion, support or conduct of research related to forests, trees and forest products.
Editors
Special Issue from the IUFRO World Congress, Curitiba, Brazil 2019 Symposium on Mistletoes
This special issue of Botany is a result of a Technical Session entitled “Complex interactions of mistletoe, ecosystems, and people”, which was held during the 2019 World Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). The session was organized by the IUFRO Working Party 7.02.11, which is devoted to the study of parasitic flowering plants in forests.
The goal of the session was to discuss the complex and important role of mistletoe in forests and woodlands worldwide, as well as the relevance of these plants to people. Current research on mistletoe is expanding, with more emphasis on tropical forests, where the diversity of mistletoe is highest.
Mistletoe plays important roles in human systems. On the one hand, mistletoes can be pests in orchards, woodlots, and forestry lands, but on the other hand, these plants are also beneficial to forest biodiversity, multiple ecosystem functions, and may also have an indirect positive effect upon the trees and shrubs that serve as host plants. In addition, mistletoes can be harvested for other non-timber resources, such as sources for medicinal products, animal fodder, and various commercial products.
The six papers in this issue capture the complex roles of mistletoe in ecosystems and managed landscapes in both tropical and temperate regions of the planet.