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Biomass losses resulting from insect and disease invasions in US forests

S. Fei,R. Morin,C. Oswalt,Andrew M. Liebhold

Published 2019 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

ABSTRACT

Significance Forests provide a wide variety of vital ecosystem services but are increasingly affected by anthropogenic disturbances. Among these, invasions by nonnative pests can adversely affect ecosystem services. Comprehensive estimates of the impacts of nonnative pest on forest biomass loss are limited, however. Using more than 92,000 field plots, we quantified pest-induced biomass loss across the conterminous United States for the first time. We show that invasive pests are causing significant shifts in carbon dynamics in US forests. In addition, >40% of the total live biomass in US forests is at risk for invasion by currently established pest species. Our findings are of potential significance in justifying the selection of future policy options and in future carbon dynamics modeling research. Worldwide, forests are increasingly affected by nonnative insects and diseases, some of which cause substantial tree mortality. Forests in the United States have been invaded by a particularly large number (>450) of tree-feeding pest species. While information exists about the ecological impacts of certain pests, region-wide assessments of the composite ecosystem impacts of all species are limited. Here we analyze 92,978 forest plots distributed across the conterminous United States to estimate biomass loss associated with elevated mortality rates caused by the 15 most damaging nonnative forest pests. We find that these species combined caused an additional (i.e., above background levels) tree mortality rate of 5.53 TgC per year. Compensation, in the form of increased growth and recruitment of nonhost species, was not detectable when measured across entire invaded ranges but does occur several decades following pest invasions. In addition, 41.1% of the total live forest biomass in the conterminous United States is at risk of future loss from these 15 pests. These results indicate that forest pest invasions, driven primarily by globalization, represent a huge risk to US forests and have significant impacts on carbon dynamics.

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