A litany of insects and diseases from beyond our shores is making deep inroads in woodlands across the country and shaping a "quiet crisis" in forest diversity.
From a distance--the eye of a soaring peregrine falcon, say--eastern forests look much the same as they did two centuries ago. They are greatly shrunken, of course, but the scalping and scalding of entire regions by rampant logging and successive brush fires through the 19th century have largely healed. Once again vast tracts ...