Meet the new insect killing Utah’s fir trees

ESS Research Assistant Professor Mickey Campbell’s research on balsam woolly adelgid is featured in @theU. The insects attack subalpine firs, which dominate a lot of higher elevation forests in the Wasatch.

Research from the University of Utah and the U.S. Forest Service has documented the extent of the infestation and created models to predict its severity in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The study links the severity of the infestation to temperature, indicating that a warming climate could exacerbate damage.

The study, titled “Quantifying current and potential future impacts of balsam woolly adelgid infestation on forest biomass,” appears in the current edition of Forest Ecology and Management. The research is funded by the U.S. Forest Service.

Read the full article on @theU