An invasion of New England
New England’s moist, tree-friendly climate ensures that the region’s forests will endure, but a parade of introduced pests and diseases also ensure that the region’s 33 million acres of trees will continue to change as species rise to replace those affected, experts said. The disruption and recovery of an ecosystem after the introduction of a new pest species is a natural process that has played out before in the region, according to Harvard Forest Director David Foster. Reconstructions of the region’s forested past have shown dramatic declines of hemlock and oak 5,000 years ago, likely related to the interplay of climate change and insect pests. The historical evidence, however, also indicates that forest-transforming diseases and pest outbreaks are also naturally rare, giving forests time to recover between episodes. That leisurely pace has been lost since the mid-1800s. Since then, 400 new species of insects have been introduced into the region, and new...