Resources
Pests, Pests, Pests
You have heard this before: bark and ambrosia beetles are pests. Bark beetles kill conifers, ambrosia beetles spread harmful fungi and pathogens. Perhaps that’s the reason why you are interested in these insects, and why you are looking at this website. But it’s not that simple… We people like to imagine enemies even where there are none. And that is why a substantial effort in our lab goes into extension and outreach: we’re trying to explain what role these beetles really play in the forests, be it natural or planted forest, and we’re trying to help people make decisions that will ensure that forests stay forests.
In short: the 100-million-year-long interplay between bark beetles, trees, and fungi has suddenly been made more dramatic by three recent events:
1. Global Homogenization of Plants & Insects
This led to invasions of beetles and beetle-borne pathogens into places where the local trees aren’t prepared to defend themselves.
2. Intensive Plantation Silviculture
In this case, the vocabulary becomes important: it is sometimes better to use the term plantation, rather than a forest, because it makes people immediately understand we have prepared a buffet for the beetles. We, people, feed the problem.
3. Climate Change
Trees are hot and thirsty. It’s the forest condition that turns harmless secondary bugs into tree killers.
Our lab’s communication goal can be summarized as: bark beetles are a symptom of the forest condition, rather than the cause of the problem. And we need to treat the problem, not the symptom. We use media, art, and strategic communication to inspire stakeholders to grow forests in the right places and at their own pace, and the “beetle problem” disappears.
This is just a short introduction. For more (much more!) information, watch the films in our project Climate Beetle, and check out our funny book The Surprising Lives of Bark Beetles.