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A Monster Threat Is Coming for America’s Trees—and Scientists Are Racing to Stop It
(www.popularmechanics.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2026
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so to sum up, populations of insects that feed on/harm trees are growing and more able to complete their life cycles given the warmer winters. i don't really subscribe to the philosophy of hobbes, but this makes me think of the road and how there were just no more trees. would be a brutish existence indeed never to hear a bird sing again nor find shade beneath the branches of a towering oak.
the tree produces a thick resin to protect itself from attacks and fungus, but when they are under drought stress they cant use the resin, so it makes them easy to be the attacked.
The birds have started eating the spotted lantern flies where I am, and I’ve seen a wasp trying to lay eggs in one.
Spotted Lantern Flies just haven’t been on the menu, but nature has learned.
I’m hoping all our bug eating friends discover this new banquet
they are also attracted to the tree of heaven, where they thrive, the tree is also super invasive. you observed a parasitoid wasp attacking the bug.
I see tree of heaven everywhere I go, and I dont understand why there isnt some kind of taskforce to remove it. People have it in their gardens, Everyone should know about the lantern flies by now, why is this tree not being managed!?
the tree is probably hard to remove, it can regenerate from its roots, i think has deep and long roots.
Tons of those trees in TN. No management whatsoever.
holy crap... im in TN and hate cutting down trees but I recently had enough of a grove of them on my property. I only knew their name from a plant app, not how bad they were. My first thought was "Im going to have fun with a chainsaw" but it turns out that's how you get a grove of them... it causes root suckering when you cut them... they're like Hydra. It's ne of the few cases where experts recommend poisoning. Glad I saw this post!
They’re being managed where I live, but most cities don’t have a forestry service the way mine does.
We pay a ton of taxes to the local municipality but in return get one of the nicest places in the country to live.