Science Daily featured research from UBC’s Okanagan campus that found controlling the spread of mountain pine beetles could instead increase the pest’s population in areas where there are not many of the insects to begin with.
Rebecca Tyson, a UBCO mathematical biology professor, looked at four different beetle management strategies: no management, pheromone baiting, tree removal and both pheromone baiting and tree removal combined.
“What our study found is that where the beetle population is low, the pheromone is actually attracting more beetles and thus helping the beetle population increase,” Tyson said.
