INVITATION You are invited to an Open House at the Mountain Research Station (MRS) highlighting hemlock work in North Carolina to combat the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), an invasive pest that is killing hemlocks throughout the eastern range of the tree. Save the date, Thursday September 5, 2019, for a tour of the facilities of [...]
Researchers at the Center for Geospatial Analytics at North Carolina State University recently developed a new forecasting technology that can help predict the spread of invasives more quickly and easily than ever before. Read more: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-insect-pests-tracks.html
Humans are largely responsible for increasing the range and distribution of pest species. As people continue to change the landscape by converting forest land for development, agriculture, and other uses, scientists are trying to understand the effect that such fragmentation will have on forest ecosystems, including their susceptibility to invasive pests. Read more: https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/compass/2019/07/11/effects-of-forest-fragmentation-and-restoration-on-invasive-species/
According to a study lead by Swiss climate change ecologist Thomas Crowther, "the restoration of trees remains among the most effective strategies for climate change mitigation." Read more:https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/76
BENT CREEK EXPERIMENTAL FOREST, N.C. — When the woolly adelgids come and descend on the forest, the eastern hemlock dies. It’s been like this since the insect was discovered in Virginia in 1951. The aphid-like pest spread north first, but by the early 2000s, eastern hemlocks in the southern Appalachians were being decimated by the [...]