Why do we need an area-wide program to suppress southern pine beetle outbreaks?
• Southern pine beetles develop from eggs to reproducing adults in as little as four weeks except during the cooler months of winter. Young females may then fly several miles before attacking new trees and laying as many as 100 eggs before dying. When populations are high, thousands of beetles may attack a tree in one afternoon and overwhelm its ability to resist colonization. This combination of a high reproductive rate, great dispersal ability, and aggregation to mass attack trees requires that all infested bark over a large area be treated so that we can reduce beetle numbers below the threshold needed to overcome tree resistance. Leaving just 10 or 20% of the trees untreated may allow an outbreak to expand and persist for many months.
