Purpose of Review

Forest managers have long suggested that forests can be made more resilient to insect pests by reducing the abundance of hosts, yet this has rarely been done. The goal of our paper is to review whether recent scientific evidence supports forest manipulation to decrease vulnerability. To achieve this goal, we first ask if outbreaks of forest insect pests have been more severe in recent decades. Next, we assess the relative importance of climate change and forest management–induced changes in forest composition/structure in driving these changes in severity.

Recent Findings

Forest structure and composition continue to be implicated in pest outbreak severity. Mechanisms, however, remain elusive. Recent research elucidates how forest compositional and structural diversity at neighbourhood, stand, and landscape scales can increase forest resistance to outbreaks. Many recent outbreaks of herbivorous forest insects have been unprecedented in terms of duration and spatial extent. Climate change may be a contributing factor, but forest structure and composition have been clearly identified as contributing to these unprecedented outbreaks.

Summary

Current research supports using silviculture to create pest-resistant forest landscapes. However, the precise mechanisms by which silviculture can increase resistance remains uncertain. Further, humans tend to more often create pest-prone forests due to political, economic, and human resistance to change and a short-sighted risk management perspective that focuses on reactive rather than proactive responses to insect outbreak threats. Future research efforts need to focus on social, political, cultural, and educational mechanisms to motivate implementation of proven ecological solutions if pest-resistant forests are to be favoured by management.

中文翻译：

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管理防虫景观的愿景：现实还是乌托邦？

审查目的

森林管理者长期以来一直建议，通过减少宿主的数量可以使森林对害虫更具抵抗力，但这种做法很少有人这样做。我们论文的目的是审查最近的科学证据是否支持森林操纵以减少脆弱性。为实现这一目标，我们首先询问近几十年来森林害虫的爆发是否更加严重。接下来，我们评估气候变化和森林管理引起的森林组成/结构变化在驱动这些严重性变化方面的相对重要性。

最近的发现

森林结构和组成继续与虫害爆发的严重程度有关。然而，机制仍然难以捉摸。最近的研究阐明了邻里、林分和景观尺度的森林组成和结构多样性如何增加森林对暴发的抵抗力。最近许多食草性森林昆虫的爆发在持续时间和空间范围上都是前所未有的。气候变化可能是一个促成因素，但森林结构和组成已被明确确定为促成这些前所未有的爆发。

概括

目前的研究支持利用造林来创造抗虫害的森林景观。然而，造林可以增加抗性的确切机制仍然不确定。此外，由于政治、经济和人类对变化的抵制，以及侧重于对昆虫爆发威胁的反应性而非主动性反应的短视风险管理观点，人类往往更经常地创造易受害虫侵害的森林。未来的研究工作需要关注社会、政治、文化和教育机制，以激励实​​施经过验证的生态解决方案，如果抗虫森林要受到管理的青睐。