We’ve all heard news about the drought in California, but have you ever stopped to wonder about the effects of insects on the drought? The article I read, called “Bark Beetles: How tiny tree killers have worsened California’s wildfires,” explains exactly that. The five-year drought has made forests more susceptible to wildfires, causing tens of millions of pine tree’s deaths and leaving the surviving trees in an extremely vulnerable state. Although this is very bad news for people living in California, the tiny bark beetles, which are indigenous to the region, are thriving.

A few bark beetles feeding off of tree bark normally wouldn’t be a problem, but when they release pheromones that attract huge swarms of beetles that all are reproducing to create even greater hoards of beetles, the weakened trees don’t stand a chance. Now, once beautiful expanses of forest are reduced to “zombie trees”: still standing tall, but covered in brown pine needles and thousands of holes bored by the bark beetles. Before reading this article I believed the wildfires were the number one concern for tree deaths, but bark beetles have actually killed more trees than wildfires in some years and can cause wildfires to spread faster due to all the built up dead material.

But is there anything that can be done to save these dying trees? It may be too late for the zombie trees to be saved, but I think there’s still hope for saving non-infested trees from the threat of wildfires and bark beetles. The article says the focus should be put on preventing wildfires rather than containing them, especially in regions with lots of dead trees that could cause faster and larger fires to spread. I think one of the best ways to do this is by removing the beetle-infested tree material as quickly as possible to stop beetles and fires in their tracks.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/24/us/california-wildfires-worsened-by-bark-beetles/