Who Won the U.S. Presidential Debate?

When we walked with a colleague into an aspen forest near Madison, Wisconsin, in the early spring of 2021, we expected to finalize our plans for a research project on several species of insects that live and feed on the trees. Instead, we found a forest laden with fuzzy, brown egg masses.

These masses, belonging to an invasive species known as the spongy moth, brought our plans to a screeching stop. We knew that within weeks, hungry spongy moth caterpillars would strip the forest bare.

We are chemical ecologists interested in how plant chemistry influences the interactions between plants and plant-feeding insects. As seasoned scientists, we've seen that good science stories sometimes end up nowhere near where the researchers first anticipated. This is one of those stories. And like many good stories, it incorporates villains, beauty, poison and death.

After an initial period of distressed hand-wringing about the fate of our aspen forest, we pivoted our research plans. We decided to address how defoliation—another word for leaf consumption—by an invasive species might alter the chemical composition of plants, to the detriment of native species.

All plants produce defense compounds to fend off herbivores, like insects, that try to eat them. These defenses include well-known chemicals like tannins, caffeine and cyanide. In turn, insects have evolved adaptations to these chemical defenses tailored to the particular species that they feed on.

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