Preface. Invasive insects that have no predators in the U.S. can only be somewhat reduced with oil-based products that will grow scarcer as petroleum declines. Pesticides are made out of oil and damage the environment for many generations to come.
To prepare for oil decline, more research needs to be done to study native predators as pest control, which takes time since since they might do as much harm as the invasive species. There are 83 known invasive insects harming forests alone, and far more devouring food crops, all of them developing resistance to whatever pesticides are thrown at them within 5 years on average.
Ironically, invasive species like fire ants can be excellent pest control agents (Yirka 2022). What a shame the fire ant wars across the entire south east doused the land with millions of tons of toxic pesticides instead (Buhs 2004). And could these poisons gone to people’s heads and made them prefer the toxic disinformation they’d like to hear (Stirewalt 2022)?
Invasion by non-native insects expected to increase 36% by 2050. Europe is likely to experience the strongest biological invasions, followed by Asia, North America and South America (USDA 2020).
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, with 41.1% of the total live forest biomass in the conterminous United States is at risk of future loss from just 15 pests. Since forests contribute ~76% of North America’s net terrestrial carbon sequestration, this loss may accelerate climate change (Fei 2019).
Perhaps postcarbon survivors will find yet another solution: eating insects, and why not, over 2 billion people eat bugs as a standard part of their diet (Mishan 2018).
Below are specific species that I’ve run across in the news, clearly hundreds of other species could be added.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts
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Kaplan S (2022) As many as one in six U.S. tree species is threatened with extinction. Some 100 native tree species could die out amid an onslaught of invasive insects, a surge in deadly diseases and the all-encompassing peril of climate change. Washington Post
The new study is the first to list and assess the health of all 881 tree species native to the contiguous United States. “Plant blindness” — the human tendency to overlook the plants that surround us — means that fewer resources are devoted to the organisms that supply Earth’s oxygen, feed its animals and store more carbon than humanity will emit in 10 years. Until several years ago, scientists didn’t even know how many tree species existed (the correct number is 58,497).
The threatened list includes soaring coast redwoods, capacious American chestnuts, elegant black ash and gnarled whitebark pine. Yet only eight tree species are federally recognized as endangered or threatened. In the United States, she found, more than two-thirds of species had never been assessed for their extinction risk. Others hadn’t been examined in decades, even as new illnesses and rising global temperatures imperiled their populations. After five years poring over scientific journals, combing through academic databases and interviewing experts, the researchers uncovered that swaths of America’s forests have silently slipped toward oblivion.
Invasive insects or pathogens are the predominant drivers of extinction risk, the scientists found. Though trees have highly evolved immune systems — a necessity for any creature that survives for centuries — they are easily overwhelmed by disease they’ve never encountered before.And climate change seems to be making these threats worse. Trees stressed by extreme weather become easy pickings for marauding insects and fungi. Prolonged droughts deprive trees of the water they need to produce resin, the sticky substance they use to seal up wounds and trap potential invaders.
In some cases, changing environmental conditions may turn previously benign organisms into killers. Adams pointed to an outbreak of blight among bur oaks across the Midwest. Though the trees have long coexisted with the fungus that causes the disease, they only started dying in recent years. Researchers think that escalating severe storms and heavy floods — trademarks of rising global temperatures — are promoting the growth of the fungus at the expense of its tree hosts.
The decline of American trees is just one piece of a broader crisis ravaging the planet. A 2019 report from the United Nations Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimated that 1 million species are in danger of dying out. The global rate of extinction is at least tens of hundreds of times higher than normal and still accelerating, threatening to eclipse some of the largest mass die-offs in Earth’s history.
The threats to trees are especially worrying, Westwood said, because of the distinct role they play in nature. Trees are the largest and longest-lived organisms on the planet. They constitute the framework of ecosystems, provide habitat for other creatures and even create their own weather.
And trees have an essential role in humanity’s efforts to avert catastrophic climate change. The United States’ plan to halve emissions by the end of the decade depends on forests to offset about 12 percent of its planet-warming pollution. Disease outbreaks, wildfires, droughts, logging and pollution may jeopardize that plan.
Lambert J (2021) These are the 5 costliest invasive species, causing billions in damages. Science News.
The impact from all invasive species cost the global economy at least $1 trillion since 1970. $149 billion: Aedes mosquitoes (A. albopictus and A. aegypti), $67 billion: Rats, $52 billion: Cats, $19 billion: Termites, $17 billion: Fire Ants
Sever M (2020) Invasive jumping worms damage U.S. soil and threaten forests. The writhing wrigglers devour leaf litter, changing soils and ecosystems as they go. Science News.
These earthworms are wriggling their way across the United States, voraciously devouring protective forest leaf litter and leaving behind bare, denuded soil. They displace other earthworms, centipedes, salamanders and ground-nesting birds, and disrupt forest food chains. They can invade more than five hectares in a single year, changing soil chemistry and microbial communities as they go, new research shows. And they don’t even need mates to reproduce.
Endemic to Japan and the Korean Peninsula, three invasive species of these worms — Amynthas agrestis, A. tokioensis and Metaphire hilgendorfi — have been in the United States for over a century. But just in the past 15 years, they’ve begun to spread widely (SNS: 10/7/16). Collectively known as Asian jumping worms, crazy worms, snake worms or Alabama jumpers, they’ve become well established across the South and Mid-Atlantic and have reached parts of the Northeast, Upper Midwest and West.
Jumping worms consume more nutrients than other earthworms, turning soil into dry granular pellets that resemble coffee grounds or ground beef — Henshue calls it “taco meat.” This can make the soil inhospitable to native plants and tree seedlings and far more likely to erode.
Worms can reduce leaf litter by 95 percent in a single season, which in turn can reduce or remove the forest understory, providing less nutrients or protection for the creatures that live there or for seedlings to grow. Eventually, different plants come in, usually invasive, nonnative species, and they also are changing the soil chemistry and the fungi, bacteria and microbes that live in the soils.
Ant BioInvasion
2014 Crazy Ants are replacing Fire ants. This is not a good thing! If you do some research on crazy ants, you will miss the fire ants. Researchers reported that where crazy ants take hold, the numbers and types of arthropods — insects, spiders, centipedes and crustaceans — decrease, which is likely to have ripple effects on ecosystems by reducing food sources for birds, reptiles and other animals. They also nest in people’s homes and damage electrical equipment. University of Texas at Austin. Crazy ants dominate fire ants by neutralizing their venom.
2021 Invasive tawny crazy ants have an intense craving for calcium – with implications for their spread in the US. These ants can blanket the ground by the millions. They harm other insects, asphyxiate chickens and even short-circuit electronics in homes.
This is the first study showing calcium is important to an invasive ant, a bit surprising given ants don’t have bones, but calcium is important in their egg production, larval development and physiological regulation.
If the spread of crazy ants continues north, the calcium-rich limestone bedrock of the lower U.S. Midwest may provide ideal conditions for populations to explode. Farmlands may be at risk because calcium is found in many fertilizers. Additionally, cities often have more calcium than surrounding areas, thanks to heavy cement use, limestone quarrying and destruction of buildings. Tawny crazy ants not only are a major threat to the biodiversity and conservation of ecosystems but also cost the U.S. billions of dollars in damage annually.
Fire Ants.
Integrated Pest Management Manual. National Park Service.
Senate Rpt.105-073 – Agricultural research, extension, & Education reform act of 1997
Ironically, Buh’s The Fire Ant Wars Nature, Science, and Public Policy in Twentieth-Century America book shows how the mind boggling amount of toxic chemicals dumped on vast regions of the South may have done far more harm than the fire ant itself, which can actually be quite beneficial because it attacks many crop pests.
Beetle BioInvasion
Khapra beetle – If this beetle gets a foothold in the USA, it could quickly consume the entire contents of a grain elevator, drive up the cost of food, and if anyone tried to eat the remaining grain, make them sick from the beetle skin and feces. Economically, this would also ruin our agricultural export industry. The Khapra beetle eats just about everything — cereals, grains, and dry plant or animal matter. They are hard to get rid of because they’re extremely resistant to insecticides and fumigants. In 2009 it was on the worldwide list of the 100 most feared invasive pests and has been found 16 times at U.S. seaports and airports. In 2010 it was found 34 times, and in 2011 106 times (Mullen 2011).
Ash borer beetles – 8 billion trees at risk
Hamilton, Anita. 4 Jul 2011. The Bug That’s Eating America. Time Magazine.
Infestations of ash borer beetles have killed 60 million ash trees in 15 states since they first appeared in Detroit in 2002. Deb McCullough, an entomologist, considers them to be the most destructive forest insect ever to invade North America. There are 8 billion ash trees for this pest with no predators to chow down on in the future. Cities are expected to spend over $10 billion the next decade to fight this pest and remove infested trees. Unfortunately, many cities replaced elms destroyed with only ashes, in the future towns plan to plant a wider variety of trees.
Mountain Pine Beetle invades ponderosa, lodgepole, Scotch and limber pine trees. They once played a useful role by killing old or weakened trees, but climate change has turned them into an unprecedented epidemic.
And it’s not just “one thing” — according to this June 2012 article, Dying Trees in Southwest Set Stage for Erosion, Water Loss in Colorado River: a one-two punch of drought and mountain pine beetle attacks have killed more than 2.5 million acres of pinyon pine and juniper trees in the American Southwest the past 15 years, setting the stage for further ecological disruption. The widespread dieback of these tree species is a special concern because they are some of the last trees that can hold together a fragile ecosystem, stabilize soil, store carbon in their biomass and the soil beneath their canopy, nourish other plant and animal species, and prevent serious soil erosion. The major form of soil erosion in this region is wind erosion. Dust blowing from eroded hills can cover snowpacks, cause them to absorb heat from the sun and melt more quickly, and further reduce critically-short water supplies in the Colorado River basin.
In British Columbia over 40 million acres have been affected, and over 3, 600,000 acres in Colorado and Wyoming. It may be the largest forest insect blight ever seen in North America.
The small hive beetle is a beekeeping pest. It was first discovered in 1996 and is now in many states including, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Virginia and Hawaii. The small hive beetle can be a destructive pest of honey bee colonies, causing damage to comb, stored honey and pollen and even cause bees to abandon their hive. The beetles can also invest stored combs and honey inside. Beetle larvae defecate and discolor the honey as they tunnel through it.
Beetles destroy coffee plants. Now that’s a real tragedy! I can cope with the collapse of civilization as long as I have my morning cup of coffee. But the coffee berry borer beetle now threatens coffee plants. It affects over 20 million farming families and causes half a billion dollars in damage every year.
Lanternflies
The spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula, first showed up in the United States five years ago, and are expected to expand throughout the nation. They can decimate vineyards, and destroy maples, oaks, and dozens of other trees by feeding on their sap (NPR 2019 Vineyards Facing An Insect Invasion May Turn To Aliens For Help).
Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
In 2010, the species reached outbreak proportions, inflicting severe economic injury in Mid-Atlantic U.S. tree fruit production to the tune of $37 million dollars. The species has now spread to 44 states, and a wave of stink bugs seems to be pushing westward and southward with no end yet in sight.
Spotted Wing Drosophila
This species is attracted to not-quite-ripe or ripe fruit, tears it open, and deposits eggs in the ripening fruit. By the time the fruit are harvested, they are crawling with fly maggots. First spotted on berries in 2008 it’s now spread from southern California to British Columbia, Canada, and most temperate areas of the U.S. They are causing up to $500 million in damage a year, an able to reproduce 13 generations in a season (Morrison 2011).
References
Buhs JB (2004) The Fire Ant Wars. University of Chicago Press.
Fei S et al (2019) Biomass losses resulting from insect and disease invasions in US forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Mishan L (2019) Why Aren’t We Eating More Insects? They’re high in protein, low in cost, eco-friendly and tasty. And only in the West have we resisted them. New York Times.
Morrison R (2018) Invasive Insects: The Top 4 “Most Wanted” List. Entomology Today.
Mullen W (2011) Inspectors do battle against alien invader. Customs agents search cargo for voracious beetle. Chicago Tribune.
Stirewalt C (2022) Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back
USDA (2020) Invasion by non-native insects expected to increase 36%. Morning AgClips.
Yirka B (2022) Replacing pesticides with ants to protect crops. phys.org