Emerald ash borer biology and invasion history

The emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), is native to eastern Asia and is primarily a pest of ash (Fraxinus) trees (Fig. 1). Established populations of EAB were first detected in the United States and Canada in 2002 (Haack et al., 2002), and based on a dendrochronology study by Siegert et al. (2009), the original EAB introduction likely occurred in the early to mid-1990s in Michigan. In European Russia, EAB was first found near Moscow in 2003, but not officially identified until 2005 (Izhevskii and Mozolevskaya, 2010). EAB has become a serious pest of ash in North America and European Russia, is causing widespread tree mortality, and is spreading rapidly on both continents (Cappaert et al., 2005; Poland and McCullough, 2006; Kovacs et al., 2010; Baranchikov, 2013; EAB Info, 2013; Orlova-Bienkowskaja, 2013; Straw et al., 2013; Herms and McCullough, 2014). In this chapter, we discuss the biology of EAB, its native and introduced range through 2013, and the likely pathways by which it was introduced and spread.