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Forest Disturbance Processes
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Aukema, Juliann E.; Leung, Brian.; Kovacs, Kent; Chivers, Corey; Britton, Kerry O.; Englin, Jeffrey; Frankel, Susan J.; Haight, Robert G.; Holmes, Thomas P.; Liebhold, Andrew M.; McCullough, Deborah G.; Von Holle, Betsy. 2011. Economic Impacts of Non-Native Forest Insects in the Continental United States. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24587.
Economic Impacts of Non-native Forest Insects
Research Issue
More than 450 non-native forest insects are established in the United States, and many of them threaten economic and social benefits of forests and urban trees. While the majority of non-native forest insects have not caused detectable damage, several species have been reported to cause noticeable impacts and a few, including the emerald ash borer, hemlock wooly adelgid and the gypsy moth, cause widespread and heavy damage. Economic assessments of the impacts of non-native species are needed to provide credible information to policy makers and to justify costs associated with management efforts to prevent new introductions, detect and eradicate newly established populations, and slow the spread of established invaders.
Our Research
Northern Research Station scientists and an international team of partners estimated total direct annual costs of non-native forest insects established in the United States using a novel modeling approach that provides cost estimates for three major feeding guilds—phloem and wood borers, sap feeders, and foliage feeders. For each guild, economic damages are calculated for five cost categories—federal government expenditures (survey, research, regulation, management, and outreach), local government expenditures (tree removal, replacement, and treatment), household expenditures (tree removal, replacement, and treatment), residential property value losses and timber value losses to forest landowners. The team found that costs are largely borne by homeowners and municipal governments. Wood- and phloem boring insects are anticipated to cause the largest economic impacts by annually inducing nearly $1.7 billion in local government expenditures for tree removal and replacement and approximately $830 million in lost residential property values. Timber value losses are relatively modest, often an order of magnitude lower than homeowner and local government expenditures. Of the three guilds, borers are represented by the fewest species, but a high proportion of them – 20 percent – are damaging. Given current rates of detecting new species, there is a 32% chance that another highly destructive borer species will invade the U.S. in the next 10 years.
Expected Outcomes
These damage estimates provide a crucial but previously missing component of cost-benefit analyses to evaluate invasive species management options. It is important to note that the cost estimates are conservative because they do not include the value of lost ecosystem services such as reductions in recreation, wildlife habitat, carbon storage & sequestration, and clean air and water associated with non-native forest insect damage. The modeling approach is highly flexible and could be used to estimate the economic impacts of natural resource disturbances at scales ranging from municipalities to nations in any country where data are available. It can be easily adapted for estimating costs of a variety of natural resource disturbances in addition to invasive species, including fire, disease, and water pollution.
Research Results
Aukema, Juliann E.; Leung, Brian.; Kovacs, Kent; Chivers, Corey; Britton, Kerry O.; Englin, Jeffrey; Frankel, Susan J.; Haight, Robert G.; Holmes, Thomas P.; Liebhold, Andrew M.; McCullough, Deborah G.; Von Holle, Betsy. 2011. Economic Impacts of Non-Native Forest Insects in the Continental United States. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24587. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024587
Research Participants
Principal Investigators
- Juliann E. Aukema, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA
- Kerry O. Britton, U.S. Forest Service, Research and Development, Arlington, VA
- Corey Chivers, Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Jeffrey Englin, Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management, Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ
- Susan J. Frankel, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Albany, CA
- Robert G. Haight, Research Forester, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, St. Paul, MN
- Thomas P. Holmes, U.S. Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Research Triangle Park, NC
- Kent F. Kovacs, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR
- Brian Leung, Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Andrew M. Liebhold, U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Morgantown, WV
- Deborah G. McCullough, Department of Entomology and Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
- Betsy Von Holle, Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
Research Partner
This work is the product of a National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Working Group.