Plant Pathologists at the Center of a Circus

摘要

Soquel demonstration forest, california- Matteo Garbelotto stands under the redwoods and strips. The plant pathologist from the University of California (UC), Berkeley, is in the Santa Cruz Mountains to experiment on a tree-killing microbe and, as usual, things aren't going as planned. A fellow researcher forgot the cheesecloth used to cover inoculation wounds in trees, so Garbelotto tears up his undershirt as a substitute. He redresses and smiles sheepishly, as if to say, "This is just another day at the office." Unexpected acts like this one―part performance, part sacrifice―? have become the norm for Garbelotto ever since he became one of two lead scientists investigating sudden oak death. The disease is strangling oak trees in the hills of coastal Northern California and threatening to spread to other forest species; in one scenario, it could leap across the continent to eastern forests, potentially costing billions of dollars. Garbelotto's dramatic bent―inherited from his mother, an Italian actress―comes in handy. Sudden oak death has thrust him and research partner David Rizzo of UC Davis into the middle of a three-ring circus where science, government, and the media intersect.