New Paper: The Effects of Urban Warming on Herbivore Abundance and Street Tree Condition

NCSU researchers, Adam Dale and Steven Frank, are co-authors of the paper The effects of urban warming on herbivore abundance and street tree condition in Plos One. This paper is part of a SE CSC project entitled “Tree Eaters: Predicting the response of herbivores to the integrated effects of urban and global change.” They found that some tree pests, such as the gloomy scale, produce significantly larger populations of young in hotter temperatures. Increased pest populations are dangerous to species like the red maple (Acer rubrum); gloomy scales, for example, use up the trees’ nutrients and energy. These findings provide insight into what the actual effects of urbanization and climate change could be. Urban planners and foresters can use information from this paper and the researchers’ related work, Urban warming trumps natural enemy regulation of herbivorous pests, to make decisions regarding which trees to plant and how many. Read the full paper here.