An annotated registry of established forest pathogens in the continental USA, Canada, and Hawaiian Islands

General understanding of disease epiphytotics caused by introduced agents (pathogens) in forest systems, as well as the ability to assess risk of future introductions within a process-barrier framework of biological invasion, are impeded by a lack of systematically compiled information on origins and functional traits of pathogens that have become established outside their range. To address these gaps, substantially update previous registries, and provide critical biosecurity information, we assembled a list of established forest phytopathogens that are present, but not thought to be native in the continental United States (CONUS), Canada, and the Hawaiian islands under working hypotheses of their origins. We restricted the present list to phytopathogens that cause disease on native tree or woody shrub species, excluding the larger number of species of non-native phytopathogens of trees that are exclusive to agricultural and horticultural species and landscapes which are already well-represented in pest databases (e.g., CABI, EPPO, APHIS, etc.). We used previous databases as a scaffold and supplemented those lists with additional taxa by cross-referencing with lists of forest pathogens and hypothetical origins for other regions (Australia and Europe) as well as by reviewing taxonomic, host, and distribution history of pathogen species that have been recorded in both the study area (CONUS-Canada-Hawaii) and at least one other continent. For each of the 93 species in our database, we provide a relational database of a) taxonomic information, b) invasion status in each region, c) first year on record in each region, d) working hypotheses of original range (where possible), e) traits including disease type and name, dispersal mode, and organs and host life stages infected, f) major hosts, g) and > 7,000 chronological records of potential location-year and host-location-year combinations for each pathogen. We also provide a reference-annotated classification system for types of evidence for first years (c), original ranges (d), and major hosts (f). This represents a significant expansion of our knowledge of non-native infectious microorganisms of forest trees compared to previous registries, particularly in terms of its comprehensiveness, precision, and accuracy of information that includes a way to assess and compare the level of uncertainty associated with key information.