This time of year, the Northeast comes alive with fall color: hillsides full of scarlet, orange, plum, and amber leaves set off against the lush dark evergreens.
But New England’s trademark autumn display may look very different in another decade or two. That’s because of the damage caused by invasive pests. The brightest reds we see during the fall are on red maple trees—the preferred host for the Asian longhorned beetle. Once an outbreak is detected, the only way to keep it from spreading is to cut, chip, and burn nearby trees. A recent outbreak in Worcester, Massachusetts, required the destruction of 25 thousand trees.
White ash trees, which contribute a variety of red, yellow, and purple colors to the fall display, are under attack by the emerald ash borer. This invasive bug is spreading rapidly through the Northeast and Midwest and it is probably unstoppable now.
Gary Lovett, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, has been researching these invasive pests…
“There are really two different ways that these invasive insects and diseases get into the country. The first is by live plant material. These are live plants that are brought in to plant in people’s yards – plants brought in by nurseries – and they can have insects and diseases on them that are hitchhiking into the country. The other way is through wood-packing material like crates and pallets, which can have insects buried in them.”
Landscapes are always changing in response to human actions, and sometimes this change is good or neutral. But this potentially dramatic change in our fall landscape is one that is particularly regrettable.
Photo, taken on July 1, 2010, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.