Invasive insect effects on nitrogen cycling and host physiology are not tightly linked.

Invasive insects may dramatically alter resource cycling and productivity in forest ecosystems. Yet, although responses of individual trees should both reflect and affect ecosystem-scale responses, relationships between physiological- and ecosystem-scale responses to invasive insects have not been extensively studied. To address this issue, we examined changes in soil nitrogen (N) cycling, N uptake and allocation, and needle biochemistry and physiology in eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L) Carr) saplings, associated with infestation by the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) (Adelges tsugae Annand), an invasive insect causing widespread decline of eastern hemlock in the eastern USA.