{"id":5064,"date":"2022-07-12T13:26:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=5064"},"modified":"2024-07-11T13:33:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T13:33:40","slug":"purdue-u-s-forest-service-launch-new-improved-alien-forest-pest-explorer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2022\/Q3\/purdue-u-s-forest-service-launch-new-improved-alien-forest-pest-explorer","title":{"rendered":"Purdue, U.S. Forest Service launch new, improved Alien Forest Pest Explorer"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —<\/p> \n

Purdue University and the U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday (July 12) announced the new and improved Alien Forest Pest Explorer<\/a> interactive web tool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The user-friendly dashboard combines information from multiple sources to show the impact of different forest insects and diseases, and the potential for further damage. The interactive and customizable dashboards are the first to overlay this pest data with related data about the status and health of the host tree species in the forest, said Songlin Fei<\/a>, the Dean\u2019s Remote Sensing Chair<\/a> and professor of forestry and natural resources<\/a> in Purdue\u2019s College of Agriculture, who led the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to better understand the relationship between pests and tree hosts, as well as assess the vulnerability of our forests, so that we can make the best decisions to preserve and protect them,\u201d said Fei who\u00a0leads\u00a0Purdue\u2019s Digital Forestry Initiative<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cThis was designed for everyone, not only for the professionals. Pest and disease prevention begins in your backyard. We want to put this tool in the hands of anyone who cares for trees so they understand what pests they may face, how to identify them and how to protect their trees and forests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Spongy moth larvae. The Spongy Moth, Lymantria dispar, is an invasive insect that threatens the health of forests. It is included as one of the top 16 most damaging pests in the new Alien Forest Pest Explorer interactive web tool. (Photo courtesy of Karla Salp, Washington State Department of Agriculture)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fei collaborated with Nicole Kong<\/a>, associate professor of geographic information systems at Purdue<\/a>, to organize the data, and design and develop the tool, which Purdue hosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the COVID pandemic, we all became much more accustomed to using dashboards and realized the empowerment of being able to easily find information and trends specific to our area,\u201d said Kong, who also is a part of Purdue\u2019s Digital Forestry Initiative and associate dean for research in Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies. \u201cOne can think of this as like a COVID dashboard for forest health and pest outbreaks. We worked to visualize the data in the most useful and intuitive way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Alien Forest Pest Explorer, or AFPE, offers maps of pest species distributions; the growth, mortality and removal rates of host species; as well as trends in host abundance and information about the pests. The annually updated data has resolution to the county level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dashboard and its database of information are critical to forest health protection, said Tracy Tophooven, the acting station director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Northern Research Station<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the past few centuries, hundreds of invasive insects have been introduced to the United States through a variety of means,\u201d Tophooven said. \u201cThis tool integrates the Northern Research Station\u2019s critical invasive species research with forest inventory and analysis data to enable users to view county-level data to meet local challenges posed by invasive insects.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Alien Forest Pest Explorer interactive web tool combines information from multiple sources to show the impact of different forest insects and diseases. (Purdue University photo\/courtesy of Agricultural Communications)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Experts from the USDA Forest Service, including Randall Morin, research forester; Andrew Liebhold, research entomologist; and Susan Crocker, research forester, collaborated on the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information featured in the dashboard includes data from the team\u2019s research into the 16 most damaging pest species and a paper<\/a> Fei co-authored with Morin and Liebhold, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>, as well as data from the Forest Service\u2019s Forest Inventory and Analysis Program Database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe AFPE integrates two critical data sets and makes them available online with custom mapping options,\u201d Morin said. \u201cA user can quickly get information about the range of invasive forest pests and their hosts in the forests of the United States. Before the AFPE, this type of information required accessing and downloading multiple datasets and having to knowledge and tools to combine them correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AFPE tool is dynamic and customizable. An overview video is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne can zoom in or out and even draw an outline around their area of interest and only see information from within that boundary,\u201d Kong said. \u201cIn addition, users can search by pest, for example, the emerald ash borer, to see where it is across the U.S., how much forest volume has been lost since it arrived in an area or the volume of host trees in a vulnerable area not yet infested.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One telling piece of information the tool illustrates is forest mortality, Fei said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur forests are critical to environmental health,\u201d he said. \u201cOur forests are a huge carbon sink for emissions, but when a tree dies, that carbon is released. Some of the most damaging pest species are killing off trees at a rate equivalent to putting millions of more cars on the street annually, in terms of carbon emissions. We need to track this and pay attention to how things are trending. It is much cheaper and easier to maintain a forest than to try to rebuild one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Alien Forest Pest Explorer database is maintained by Purdue, the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, the U.S. Forest Service Forest Health Protection and the Forest Health Assessment and Applied Sciences team. The project also receives partial funding from the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purdue\u2019s College of Agriculture and the Forest Service have a history of successful collaboration, including a joint national level invasive plant project and a national level forest biomass and carbon project.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Writer:<\/strong>\u00a0Elizabeth K. Gardner; 765-441-2024;\u00a0ekgardner@purdue.edu<\/a>
Sources:<\/strong>\u00a0Songlin Fei,\u00a0sfei@purdue.edu<\/a>
Nicole Kong,\u00a0kongn@purdue.edu<\/a>
Randall Morin,\u00a0randall.s.morin@usda.gov<\/a>
Agricultural Communications:<\/strong>\u00a0765-494-8415;
Maureen Manier, Department Head,\u00a0mmanier@purdue.edu<\/a>
Agriculture News Page<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n
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Note to journalists:<\/p>\n

\n Photos and videos are available for download from the Google drive:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/purdue.ag\/pest-database<\/a>. Songlin Fei is currently at the\u00a0ESRI conference<\/a>\u00a0in San Diego and is available for interview. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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