We review and synthesize information on invasions of nonnative forest insects and diseases in the United States, including their ecological and economic impacts, pathways of arrival, distribution within the United States, and policy options for reducing future invasions. Nonnative insects have accumulated in United States forests at a rate of ~2.5 per yr over the last 150 yr. Currently the two major pathways of introduction are importation of live plants and wood packing material such as pallets and crates. Introduced insects and diseases occur in forests and cities throughout the United States, and the problem is particularly severe in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Nonnative forest pests are the only disturbance agent that has effectively eliminated entire tree species or genera from United States forests within decades. The resulting shift in forest structure and species composition alters ecosystem functions such as productivity, nutrient cycling, and wildlife habitat. In urban and suburban areas, loss of trees from streets, yards, and parks affects aesthetics, property values, shading, stormwater runoff, and human health. The economic damage from nonnative pests is not yet fully known, but is likely in the billions of dollars per year, with the majority of this economic burden borne by municipalities and residential property owners. Current policies for preventing introductions are having positive effects but are insufficient to reduce the influx of pests in the face of burgeoning global trade. Options are available to strengthen the defenses against pest arrival and establishment, including measures taken in the exporting country prior to shipment, measures to ensure clean shipments of plants and wood products, inspections at ports of entry, and post-entry measures such as quarantines, surveillance, and eradication programs. Improved data collection procedures for inspections, greater data accessibility, and better reporting would support better evaluation of policy effectiveness. Lack of additional action places the nation, local municipalities, and property owners at high risk of further damaging and costly invasions. Adopting stronger policies to reduce establishments of new forest insects and diseases would shift the major costs of control to the source and alleviate the economic burden now borne by homeowners and municipalities.

/pdf/nonnative-forest-insects-and-pathogens-in-the-united-states-ty55hlhmll.pdf

Nonnative forest insects and pathogens in the United States: Impacts and policy options.

Oak cover types comprise half of the forestlands in the eastern United States. There is a great desire to sustain these highly valued forests. Unfortunately, reports of the successional replacement of oak are all too common, as they are throughout the world. Sustaining the oak resource requires the ability to both regenerate and recruit oak into the overstory as dominant mature trees. Too often these two critical processes are disconnected in oak management, thwarting the best of intentions to sustain oak. Restoring and sustaining oak forests require active management and long-term commitment. Climate change, high deer populations, invasive species, and social constraints can complicate oak management. Despite these challenges, we have sufficient knowledge to be successful in our efforts despite an uncertain future. Forest landscapes are too homogeneous today and may cause a bottleneck in oak regeneration as mature forests become old-growth. Management is needed to diversify the landscape and create a more balanced age structure that has the capacity to naturally regenerate oak. Landscape diversity is also desired to combat the myriad of forest threats and future uncertainty. Getting private landowners and public managers to manage for oak is key to changing landscapes and ensuring a quality oak resource.

/pdf/sustaining-oak-forests-in-eastern-north-america-regeneration-2bpxggbd9x.pdf

Sustaining oak forests in eastern North America: regeneration and recruitment, the pillars of sustainability.

This article examines the use of economic analysis to inform bioinvasion management, with particular focus on forest resources. Economics is key for understanding invasion processes, impacts, and decision-making. Biological invasions are driven by and affect economic activities at multiple scales and stages of an invasion. Bioeconomic modeling seeks to inform how resources can be optimally allocated across invasion management activities—including prevention, surveillance programs for early detection and management, and controlling invasion populations and spread—to minimize the long-term costs and damages. Economic analysis facilitates understanding of decisions by public and private decision-makers, gaps between these, and the design of policies to achieve socially desirable outcomes. Private decision-makers may undercontrol invasions relative to socially optimal levels, because they generally account for their own costs and benefits of control but less often for broader ecosystem impacts or future spread across the landscape. Economic analysis considers approaches for increasing private invasion management and evaluates feedbacks between ecological and economic systems that can affect policy outcomes. Future research should continue evaluation and design of control strategies across the biosecurity continuum and across species to enhance cost-effectiveness, better incorporate uncertainty into policy design, increase focus on incentives and behavioral tools to influence private behaviors that affect invasion spread, and incorporate invasive species consideration within broader systems-focused science. In addition, challenges in valuing biodiversity and ecosystem service impacts and the costs and effectiveness of control measures are key data gaps. Greater collaboration between decision-makers and researchers will facilitate development and communication of usable economic research.

/pdf/economics-of-invasive-species-policy-and-management-srtaziwbwj.pdf

Economics of invasive species policy and management

For millennia, natural disturbance regimes, including anthropogenic fire and hunting practices, have led to forest regeneration patterns that created a diversity of forest lands across the USA. But dramatic changes in climates, invasive species, and human population, and land use have created novel disturbance regimes that are causing challenges to securing desired natural regeneration. Climate is an ever-present background disturbance and determinant of species distribution. Changes in certain other factors such as large herbivore populations, wildfire, and pests modify forest composition and structure, and are common barriers to natural regeneration of desired species. Changes in long-standing disturbance regimes have led to the homogenization of forest landscape composition and structure. Today, forests have low regeneration potential and are low in resilience. They have reduced productivity and are prone to widespread health issues including severe forest mortality. In addition to epidemics of native invasive species due to climate change and availability of habitat at landscape scales, the continued introduction and spread of non-native pests and diseases are causing large-scale forest mortality. These ecological changes have cascading ecological consequences such as increases in severe wildfire, which pose new barriers to natural regeneration. Equally challenging are the barriers to natural regeneration that arise from social, political and economic factors. To address many of these issues requires active management that links all critical stages in the regeneration niche necessary for achieving desired regeneration to sustain forest development and production in a socially acceptable manner and economically viable market system.

/pdf/barriers-to-natural-regeneration-in-temperate-forests-across-1j2jx4vbm1.pdf

Barriers to natural regeneration in temperate forests across the USA

Exotic annual Bromus species are widely recognized for their potential to invade, dominate, and alter the structure and function of ecosystems. In this chapter, we summarize the invasion potential, ecosystem threats, and management strategies for different Bromus species within each of five ecoregions of the western United States. We characterize invasion potential and threats in terms of ecosystem resistance to Bromus invasion and ecosystem resilience to disturbance with an emphasis on the importance of fire regimes. We also explain how soil temperature and moisture regimes can be linked to patterns of resistance and resilience and provide a conceptual framework that can be used to evaluate the relative potential for invasion and ecological impact of the dominant exotic annual Bromus species in the western United States.

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_journals/2016/rmrs_2016_brooks_m001.pdf

Exotic Annual Bromus Invasions: Comparisons Among Species and Ecoregions in the Western United States

The introduction of nonnative invasive species (NNIS) into the United States has had tremendous impacts on the nation's commercial and urban forest resources. Of principal concern are the effects of NNIS on forest composition, structure, function, productivity, and patterns of carbon sequestration. In 2006, the Society of American Foresters commissioned an ad hoc team to prepare a white paper on the effect of NNIS on America's forests. The paper was the genesis of this article, which provides an overview of the impacts of NNIS within the United States and includes recommendations for NNIS policy and management.

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2009_moser_w001.pdf

Impacts of Nonnative Invasive Species on US Forests and Recommendations for Policy and Management

Perspective: Old-Growth: Some Questions, Truths, and Consequences

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

We encountered an error while loading the panel. Please try refreshing the page.

Something went wrong

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

Anyone with the link can view this chat. You can switch it back to private anytime.

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Edward L. Barnard

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Impacts of Nonnative Invasive Species on US Forests and Recommendations for Policy and Management

Perspective: Old-Growth: Some Questions, Truths, and Consequences