Forest restoration is affected by two compounding problems. First, the goals of restoration often are unclear and involve the simultaneous consideration of a number of diverse criteria including aesthetics, biodiversity, recreation, and economic cost. Second, restoration management is a long-term process such that effects are difficult to measure at the time of implementation. Moreover, restora...

Many insect pests utilize plant volatiles for host location and untangling the mechanisms of this process can provide tools for pest management. Numerous experimental results have been published on the effect of plant volatiles on insect pests. We used a meta-analysis to summarize this knowledge and to look for patterns. Our goal was to identify herbivore and plant traits that might explain the...

Trees alter their use and allocation of nutrients in response to drought, and changes in soil nutrient cycling and trace gas flux (N2 O and CH4 ) are observed when experimental drought is imposed on forests. In extreme droughts, trees are increasingly susceptible to attack by pests and pathogens, which can lead to major changes in nutrient flux to the soil. Extreme droughts often lead to more c...

Forest pest is one of the most important factors affecting the health of forest. However, since it is difficult to figure out the pest areas and to predict the spreading ways just to partially control and exterminate it has not effective enough so far now. The infected areas by it have continuously spreaded out at present. Thus the introduction of spatial information technology is highly demand...

One major feature of Mediterranean climates is the existence of seasonal drought. For those trees which seeds germinate in spring or early summer, severe droughts result in high mortality at early stages of development and may prevent natural regeneration of the forest; also adult trees may die, in particular when droughts are recurrent and acute, which in turn attracts pests and diseases, resu...

The gypsy moth is one of North America's most devastating exotic forest pests because it can cause the loss of valuable oak species, degraded aesthetics, loss of wildlife habitat, and detrimental effects on watersheds. Due to the increasingly wide infestation of the gypsy moth, it is important to develop decision aids that help assess the risks of this pest to our forests. Expert systems are a ...

Forests deliver multiple benefits both to their owners and to wider society. However, a wave of forest pests and pathogens is threatening this worldwide. In this paper we examine the effect of disease on the optimal rotation length of a single-aged, single rotation forest when a payment for non-timber benefits, which is offered to private forest owners to partly internalise the social values of...

Intensifying global trade will result in increased numbers of plant pest and pathogen species inadvertently being transported along with cargo. This paper examines current mechanisms for prevention and management of potential introductions of forest insect pests and pathogens in the European Union (EU). Current European legislation has not been found sufficient in preventing invasion, establish...

Tropical agriculture is expanding rapidly at the expense of forest, driving a global extinction crisis. How to create agricultural landscapes that minimise the clearance of forest and maximise sustainability is thus a key issue. One possibility is protecting natural forest within or adjacent to crop monocultures to harness important ecosystem services provided by biodiversity spill-over that ma...

Shifts to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in agriculture are assisted by the identification of chemical applications that provide effective control of pests relative to broad-spectrum pesticides but have fewer negative effects on natural enemy (beneficial) groups that assist in pest control. Here, we outline a framework for identifying such applications and apply this framework to field trials...