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It's really wild. I wonder what trees we'll have left!

Besides the famous case of the chestnut:

Dogwoods are being wiped out, mostly gone in some areas, disease originating from Asia: https://henderson.ces.ncsu.edu/2021/03/native-dogwoods-long-...

Sassafras trees wiped out by Asian beetle causing laurel wilt: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/articles/page1685633928383

American elms largely wiped out by Dutch elm disease (also actually originates from Asia) https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/pathogens-an...

Others in this thread have talked about the threats to ash. It's very disheartening, but I guess it's the inevitable price of globalization.



Chestnut is being rescued by a two-pronged approach using hybridization (with a resistant asian species, followed by backcrosses to get something that is mostly American Chestnut) and genetic engineering (introducing a wheat gene that destroys oxalate, which the fungus uses to kill tissue.)


I wonder, does Asia and Europe have nearly as many problems with North American invasive plants / pests / diseases as North America does with its non-natives?

Being from the US, I don't recall any such stories in the news.


Oh we do! There's a nice statistic fron the Netherlands about the number of invasive species, which is exponentially growing: https://www.clo.nl/en/indicators/en162202-alien-species-in-t...

Most of these are from Asia and Noth America.


DEA will be delighted about that second one.




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