7-6 IAN Beetle Birth Control

 Many Forests Feeling the Heat from Climate Change 

As the climate gets warmer, many forests are feeling the heat. Impacts range from increased forest fire hazards and tree mortality to detrimental beetle outbreaks and alterations to leaf abundance and bloom.

When forest cover or composition changes, there are impacts to the availability of wood products, clean water, recreational opportunities, and habitats for many plants and animals. With all the damage from bark beetles, I askedIdaho Department of agriculture entomologist Jodie Ellis  the cliché question: if we can put a man on the moon why can’t we get rid of bark beetles?   “Let me answer that in one word… Numbers. And what I mean by that is if you look at human and you look at birth control in a human, it is not that hard to do because 1st of all the number of humans you are going to encounter is very limited compared to the number of insects that you’re going to encounter. Human females have one egg every month. Not a big deal. When you talk about the life pattern of insects, their whole survival mechanism rests on the fact that they don’t reproduce by the tens or the hundreds or the thousands or even millions, their populations exceed the aliens and I don’t know how you would deliver a control system to insects. Now they do have them. One of the best examples of that is mating disruption in gypsy moths. But beetles… No. They have short range contact pheromones and they’re not even aware of the pheromones until they actually touch them.