Population and community ecology of the brown spruce longhorn beetle

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

With increasing global trade, invasive alien forest insects have become agents of severe ecological and economic disturbance in North American forests. The emerald ash borer (native to the Far East) and the brown spruce longhorn beetle (native to Eastern Europe) are two examples of tree-killing insects that have recently established in Eastern Canada. These insects are not pests in their native range but cause tree mortality in Canada as a result of novel ecological interactions that lack regulatory controls and permit population explosions. My research investigates the ecology and behaviour of tree-killing insects, their host trees and natural enemies with the goal of understanding why and how endemic populations transition into epidemics. I predict that the composition of the interacting community in an insect's new range would determine the extent to which an alien insect species becomes invasive. Using the brown spruce longhorn beetle as my study system, I will apply theoretical (mathematical models) and empirical (laboratory and field experiments) approaches to compare the nature of community interactions (i.e. relationship with host trees, competitors and natural enemies) in Canada to interactions that occur in the beetle's native European range. The study of community structure and function and their correlation with population dynamics will serve as predictive tools to determine when and whether an alien insect will undergo a population outbreak. Predicting the invasiveness of alien species is crucial to understanding the problem and finding solutions. Identification of "high impact" invaders will be helpful when developing decision support tools to mitigate the effects of alien pests in Canada's forests. Results from this research will be of interest to invasion ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and forest managers.