George Newcombe
Research/Focus Areas
  • Forest and plant pathology
  • Invasion biology
  • Plant-soil feedback
  • Disease diagnosis
  • Biological control of invasive plants
  • Endophyte-mediated resistance to pests and pathogens in forest plantations
  • Ecological restoration
Academic Programs
My Courses
  • FOR 468: Forest and Plant Pathology (Spring)
  • FOR 531: Invasion Biology (Alternate Spring)
"To say that genes are nature and the rest is nurture is almost certainly wrong. Genes are the means by which nurture expresses itself, just as surely as they are the means by which nature expresses itself." - Matt Ridley in The Agile Gene, 2003

George Newcombe

College of Natural Resources
Department of Forest Resources
Professor

Campus Locations
  • Moscow
With UI Since
1999
Office: CNR 203D
Phone: (208) 885-5289
Email: George Newcombe
Mailing Address:
c/o Department of Forest Resources, University of Idaho
PO Box 441133
Moscow, Idaho 83844-1133

Curriculum Vitae
Department of Forest Resources
Center for Research on Invasive Species and Small Populations
  • Ph.D. Botany, University of Guelph, 1988
  • B.Sc. Plant Science, McGill University, 1983

George Newcombe received a Bachelor of Science in Plant Science from McGill University in 1983 and holds a doctorate in Botany from the University of Guelph. George moved from his native Canada to the United States in 1991. Today, his research encompasses plant and forest pathology and invasion biology; he is especially interested in the roles of fungi in plant communities. Here are four specific areas of application of his research: 1) diagnosis of fungi that are new to North America or to the region, 2) research on fungi that might protect native trees from exotic pathogens, 3) research on fungi that might be used against invasive plants, and 4) research on genes for resistance to exotic pathogens of plants.



Recent Publication Honors
  • PECHANOVA, OLGA, HSU, C.-Y., ADAMS, J.P., JAWDY, S., VANDERVELDE, L., RAGHAVENDRA, A., LAWRENCE, A.M., ADELI, A., NEWCOMBE, G., TSCHAPLINSKI, T.J., SÉGUIN, A., & YUCEER, C. 2009. Apoplast Proteome Reveals that Extracellular Matrix Mediates Multi-Stress Response and Growth in Poplar. Plant Cell: in review.
  • NEWCOMBE, G. 2009. Forest Genetics – A Tree is Just a Forest’s Way of Making Another Forest. BioScience 59: in press.
  • NEWCOMBE, G., A. SHIPUNOV, S. D. EIGENBRODE, A. RAGHAVENDRA, H. DING, C. L. ANDERSON, R. MENJIVAR, M. CRAWFORD, AND M. SCHWARZLÄNDER. 2009. Endophytes influence protection and growth of an invasive plant. Communicative and Integrative Biology 2:1-3.

Outreach & Engagement Projects

  • Ongoing collaboration with the Forest Service and the U.S. National Parks Service on whitebark pine restoration projects at Crater Lake and Mount Rainier.
  • Ongoing project to help the Forest Service find additional biocontrol agents for cheatgrass.
  • Working with forest-products companies to improve disease resistance in hybrid poplar plantations.


*See CV for full list of publications and outreach projects.