beetle

A beetle that has killed millions of acres of pines in southern forests is munching its way north, and new research suggests its tree-killing prowess could be magnified in cooler climes.

Once unheard-of north of Delaware, southern pine beetles have been steadily expanding their range as the climate warms. Efforts are underway to quell a large outbreak in Long Island's pine barrens and monitoring traps have caught beetles as far north as New England.

Once the numbers came in from the U.S. Forest Service's annual aerial survey last month, people started to feel hopeful: The mountain pine beetle was declining in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. In fact, the beetle infected fewer acres in Colorado in 2013 than in any year since 1998.

On a gorgeous Monday morning at the Arnold Arboretum, city, state, and federal authorities, as well as members of the Arboretum staff and officials from surrounding communities, gathered to mark the evident eradication of the Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive insect that since 2008 has devastated the Worcester area (some 34,000 trees had to be destroyed there), and threatened to do the same in Greater Boston.