Applied Chemical Ecology of Forest Insects

Dear Colleagues,

In terms of impacts and numbers of species and individuals, insects are an important natural component of forest ecosystems. Forest insects not only have a strong impact on tree growth and reproduction, but also interact closely with other animals and plants in forest ecosystems. Some insects have negative impacts on tree health. In addition, some species reach high population densities, primarily due to ecological imbalances caused by disturbances (including climate change) and can result in significant levels of tree mortality and impacts at the stand level. As a result of globalization, international travel and climate change, many species have expanded their ranges and some of these have become new and serious pests in the invaded ranges.

Chemical ecology is the study of chemically mediated intra- and interspecific interactions and, consequently, has immense potential to provide biorational pest management tactics. For example, chemically mediated interactions involving forest insects include the role that semiochemicals play in mate location, and mediating interspecific interactions include detection and avoidance of host/non-host trees, predator-prey interactions and interactions with microorganisms (including symbionts) in forest ecosystems. Semiochemicals of many forest insects, including pheromones, allomones, kairomones, and synomones, have been identified, synthesized and incorporated into IPM programs against economically and ecologically important forest insect pests.

This Special Issue on “Applied Chemical Ecology of Forest Insects” welcomes original research articles and reviews on the recent progress of semiochemical biology/ecology, chemical identification/synthesis and the application of synthetic semiochemicals in pest management (including monitoring, mass-trapping, mating disruption, attract-kill and push-pull) of important native and invasive forest insect pests.  

Dr. Qing-He Zhang
Dr. Jeremy Dean Allison
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.