Main pests of the forest

Today a strong body of research exists regarding the management of forest ecosystems and the genetic improvement of tree species and varieties. Forestry studies also include the development of better methods for the planting, protecting, thinning, controlled burning, felling, extracting, and processing of timber. One of the applications of modern forestry is reforestation, in which trees are planted and tended in a given area. Trees provide numerous environmental, social and economic benefits for people. In many regions, the forest industry is of major ecological, economic, and social importance. In topographically severe forested terrain, proper forestry is important for the prevention or minimization of serious soil erosion or even landslides. In areas with a high potential for landslides, forests can stabilize soils and prevent property damage or loss, human injury, or loss of life.

Even urban forests, which include trees planted along city streets and those growing in parks or nature preserves, help reduce air pollution, filter rainwater and provide shade. Most of water systems rely on water from forested watersheds, where forest soils provide natural filtration to keep streams clean and water quality high. Through photosynthesis, the trees and plants in forests provide most of the oxygen that humans and animals breathe. Forests also absorb and reduce the presence in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Under the crests of trees and forests, the temperature is noticeably lower than in open areas or in the city, as trees use solar energy to evaporate moisture, which has a cooling effect. A single tree displays a cooling effect similar to the aircons of two average households. As a result, the surface temperature of forests can be up to 20 degrees cooler than that of buildings or road asphalt. Urban trees help buildings stay cool, reducing the need for electric fans or air conditioners, while large forests can tackle daunting tasks like curbing a city's "heat island" effect or regulating regional temperatures.

1. Breathe - Forests pump out oxygen we need to live and absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale (or emit). A single mature, leafy tree is estimated to produce a day's supply of oxygen for anywhere from two to 10 people.  Forests can mitigate climate change. By capturing and storing carbon, forests remove significant volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

2. Ecosystem - Nearly half of Earth's known species live in forests.

3. Weather - Large forests can influence regional weather patterns and even create their own microclimates.

4. Filter - On top of flood control, soaking up surface runoff also protects ecosystems downstream. Modern stormwater increasingly carries toxic chemicals, from gasoline and lawn fertilizer to pesticides.

5. Wind control - Farming near a forest has lots of benefits, like bats and songbirds that eat insects or owls and foxes that eat rats. But groups of trees can also serve as a windbreak, providing a buffer for wind-sensitive crops. And beyond protecting those plants, less wind also makes it easier for bees to pollinate them.

6. Stabilizes - Forests also influence nature’s capacity to cope with natural hazards, acting as barriers against heavy rains, flooding and strong winds. They help control or reduce the risk of soil erosion, landslides and avalanches. Floods are less common in areas where forests grow. One reason for this is that, during heavy rainfall, much more water seeps into the soil, instead of flowing directly into the rivers. Mangrove forests protect the coast from tsunamis. Forests also reduce the risk of landslides, avalanches and sand storms.

Eruptive outbreaks of the bark beetle result in mass attacks of living trees and may cause tree mortality. In fact, although this beetle species prefers damaged spruce trees, the beetles also frequently kill solitary spruce trees, for example on the edges of recently harvested clear-cuts. Under favorable conditions and during an high population level outbreak phase, it is able to attack healthy trees and is a primary factor causing direct tree mortality. Outbreaks can develop rapidly in spruce stands that are damaged by wind, snow, stressed by drought or air pollution. During such outbreaks, the population may increase sufficiently to start an epidemic. In an epidemic situation, spruce bark beetles can overcome the resistance of healthy trees.. The damage by this species causes a decrease in value of the host affected, for instance, by lowering its market price, increasing cost of production, maintenance, or mitigation, or reducing value of property where it is located. In addition, this species may cause loss of markets (domestic or foreign) due to presence and quarantine significant status. Adults carry a number of associated fungi such as Ceratocystis polonica. This blue stain fungus is highly virulent and can kill healthy spruce trees. In addition, this fungus stains the wood with blue streaks, which reduces its commercial value. Attacked trees die faster than would be expected by solely phloem girdling due to larval feeding. The organism is expected to cause significant direct environmental effects, such as extensive ecological disruption. Climate warming, occuring in the past decade or so, allows the bark beetle to complete life cycles at altitudes which were previously unsuitable for its development, and thus may seriously affect the protective functions of mountain forests with regard to rockfall, avalanches and soil erosion.

A pest of various types of pines and firs. Occasionally attacks firs, larch and juniper. In the year 1 - 2 generations. Adults and larvae are harmful, grinding through the bark, often weakened in the apical part. Besides damage from digging tunnels, the beetle also spreads fungi between trees. Adults emerge from hibernation sites in May. Main flight takes place on warm days in late May/early June.

Once a tree has been chosen, the male bores through the bark and excavates a nuptial chamber in the phloem layer, while emitting in his frass the aggregation pheromone ipsenol. Ipsenol attracts mates, as well as other males who initiate their own galleries. Females enter a nuptial chamber, mate, and excavate egg galleries branching from the nuptial chamber. Females lay up to 50 eggs, each in an individual niche cut into the phloem tissue of the oviposition gallery wall. Niches are individually covered by the female with plugs of chewed phloem. Eggs hatch after 3-5 days, and larvae begin mining their individual feeding galleries.

A trap is working on radius of 35-40 meters in opened fields. By one trap can catch due 10.000 males of the pest (depends of infestation level) by using 30 – 50 traps per hectare in the opened field.