Ebook: Dynamics of Forest Insect Populations: Patterns, Causes, Implications

Insects multiply. Destruction reigns. There is dismay, followed by outcry, and demands to Authority. Authority remembers its experts or appoints some: they ought to know. The experts advise a Cure. The Cure can be almost anything: holy water from Mecca, a Government Commis­ sion, a culture of bacteria, poison, prayers denunciatory or tactful, a new god, a trap, a Pied Piper. The Cures have only one thing in common: with a little patience they always work. They have never been known entirely to fail. Likewise they have never been known to prevent the next outbreak. For the cycle of abundance and scarcity has a rhythm of its own, and the Cures are applied just when the plague of insects is going to abate through its own loss of momentum. -Abridged, with insects in place of voles, from C. Elton, 1924, Voles, Mice and Lemmings, with permission of Oxford University Press This book is an enquiry into the "natural rhythms" of insect abundance in forested ecosystems and into the forces that give rise to these rhythms. Forests form unique environ­ ments for such studies because one can find them growing under relatively natural (pri­ meval) conditions as well as under the domination of human actions. Also, the slow growth and turnover rates of forested ecosystems enable us to investigate insect popula­ tion dynamics in a plant environment that remains relatively constant or changes only slowly, this in contrast to agricultural systems, where change is often drastic and frequent.

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Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xx
The Larch Cone Fly in the French Alps....Pages 1-28
The Larch Gall Midge in Seed Orchards of South Siberia....Pages 29-44
The Armored Scales of Hemlock....Pages 45-65
The Beech Scale....Pages 67-85
The Balsam Woolly Adelgid in North America....Pages 87-109
The Large Pine Aphid on Scots Pine in Britain....Pages 111-128
The White Lace Lerp in Southeastern Australia....Pages 129-140
The Nantucket Pine Tip Moth....Pages 141-161
The Autumnal Moth in Fennoscandia....Pages 163-178
The Douglas-Fir Tussock Moth in the Interior Pacific Northwest....Pages 179-209
The Nun Moth in European Spruce Forests....Pages 211-231
The Larch Casebearer in the Intermountain Northwest....Pages 233-242
The Pine Beauty in Scottish Lodgepole Pine Plantations....Pages 243-266
The Teak Defoliator in Kerala, India....Pages 267-289
The Pine Looper in Britain and Europe....Pages 291-308
The Spruce Budworm in Eastern North America....Pages 309-330
The Larch Budmoth in the Alps....Pages 331-351
The Gypsy Moth....Pages 353-375
The Pine Sawfly in Central France....Pages 377-405
The Japanese Pine Sawyer....Pages 407-429
The Greater European Spruce Beetle....Pages 431-454
The Spruce Bark Beetle of Eurasia....Pages 455-478
The Mountain Pine Beetle in Western North America....Pages 479-503
The Southern Pine Beetle....Pages 505-530
The Fir Engraver Beetle in Western States....Pages 531-553
The Striped Ambrosia Beetle....Pages 555-577
Back Matter....Pages 579-596
....Pages 597-603