The Invasion of the Super Insects - Nautilus
▻https://nautil.us/the-invasion-of-the-super-insects-246813
New generations of insects are devouring Earth’s forests.
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“It was very surprising to find such unprecedented levels of damage, despite widespread insect declines,” Azevedo-Schmidt says.
Their findings, published this October in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, add an ominous new twist to the environmental fate of plants and trees.3 Today we need forests more than ever to sequester carbon and to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen to fight climate change. But nations are razing forests to make room for animal feedlots. Timber companies are running the chainsaws around the clock to supply wood for houses, furniture, guitars, paper, you name it. Trees like the mighty Dutch elm are being felled by a pandemic of diseases. And now along comes the possibility that our age is breeding swarms of super insects that are chomping their way through forests.