UNH researchers are examining the long-term ecological effects of the chestnut blight, which in the course of a couple decades a century ago wiped out one of the dominant tree species on the entire Eastern Seaboard, to see if it can help them predict what will happen as ash trees disappear due to the emerald ash borer. New Hampshire Bulletin has the story here.
The ash isn’t as dominant as the chestnut was in our forests but it’s still a very important species, one that provides a lot of food for wildlife from its nuts if nothing else.
That feedback includes many relationships among forest organisms, from the microbes and fungi in the soil to plants and insects living beneath the tree canopy — all of which are shaped by trees. The ash tree protection experiment will allow scientists to track the impacts of ash borer on those communities and relationships
The experimental setup includes dozens of forested research plots in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, each with seven to 15 “large, mature ash” trees. Ash trees in half of the plots were injected with a powerful insecticide at the outset of the study — which began in a flurry right after the invasive beetles were found at Hubbard Brook in 2021.
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