From Diagnosis to Causal History: A Temporal Causal-Reconstruction Framework for Distinguishing Predisposition, Initiation, Transmission, Amplification, Terminal Mortality, and Decomposition in Tree Decline
From Diagnosis to Causal History A Temporal Causal-Reconstruction Framework for Distinguishing Predisposition, Initiation, Transmission, Amplification, Terminal Mortality, and Decomposition in Tree Decline John Swygert September 23, 2026 Hypothesis, methods, and research-framework paper Abstract Tree decline is often diagnosed from the biological agents, injuries, physiological abnormalities, or environmental conditions detectable when symptoms become conspicuous. Such diagnoses can correctly identify an important causal agent without necessarily reconstructing the sequence by which the tree entered decline. A fungus capable of causing lethal disease may have initiated a particular decline, may have entered after insect injury, may have become damaging only after environmental or physiological stress, or may have proliferated after the tree had crossed an irreversible threshold. Likewise, an insect may initiate injury, vector a pathogen, amplify an existing disease, exploit a weakened...