The overall goals of this research were to characterize the community of subcortical insects associated with spruce-infesting Ips spp. in Alaska and to develop new strategies to reduce their impact on forest trees. These strategies focused on non-insecticidal treatments that exploited natural insect chemical communication channels and/or increased tree defense responses. The coupling of these two approaches has never been attempted before in forest ecosystems. Thus, this research took the novel approach of using natural products at two levels to explore the interaction of the chemical communication of bark beetles and tree defense to protect trees from insect attack. Specifically, this thesis reports on chemical analyses of volatiles [...]
