Current Events

 

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Dr. Jaclyn Hatala Matthes

Dept Biological Sciences
Wellesley College
Wellesley, MA

"Forecasting the Ecosystem Impacts of Invasive Insects in Northeastern U.S. Forests"

Mark your calendar for the next NEBC Meeting on Saturday, December 7, 2019 at Harvard University's Haller Hall, 4:00pm.

 

Abstract: "Forecasting the Ecosystem Impacts of Invasive Insects in Northeastern U.S. Forests." Introduced insects and pathogens are a globally widespread cause of forest disturbance, and forests in the northeastern United States are host to a particularly diverse abundance of introduced insect pests. Introduced insect pests can create significant ecological damage to forests, often with severe economic consequences for human communities. These impacts are challenging to predict due to the diversity of insect pests, the internal biotic dynamics within ecological communities, and external forces of disturbance such as droughts and storms. Ecological forecasting can play a helpful role in constraining the potential near-term ecological outcomes of the impacts of insect pests in forests. Through a framework that merges continual data collection with an ecosystem model (much like our weather forecasting system), we can generate forest forecasts for the impacts and recovery from insect pests. This forecasting framework can help to identify similarities and differences among the impacts of different species of insect pests and potentially help to inform future field data collection efforts.

 

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