One year on from the historic wildfires that decimated the woodlands of Gironde in south-western France, the bark beetle is adding insult to injury. Bark beetle larvae usually feed off the sap of dead trees, but after the fires left so many trees weakened, it's been a field day for the insect, which is now proliferating at an alarming rate. It's now a race against time to save what can be saved – to evacuate dead or infected trees from the area, in the hope of protecting their neighbours. The Down to Earth team reports.
In the forest of La Teste-de-Buch, in south-western France, 3,500 hectares went up in flames last year. Since then, loggers have worked overtime, fighting a war on two fronts: to cut down and sell on the burnt wood for whatever it might still be good for, and also limit the spread of the bark beetle, a winged insect capable of colonising trees within a 10 to 20-kilometre radius.
It's an emergency situation: local authorities fear a spread into neighbouring forests all around the Arcachon basin. Nascent clusters have already been identified and stopped in their tracks with the felling of more trees, but some scientists say the damage is already done.
Due to climate change, the bark beetle's reproduction is also accelerated, and a female that laid eggs at the start of the year could now have as many as 100,000 descendants. For now, expanses of commercial pine have been spared, but the industry must prepare its forests to face down these tiny tree killers.
