A recent multi-year outbreak of an invasive moth killed thousands of acres of oak trees across southern New England. But interspersed among the wreckage were thousands of trees that survived. A new study published today in Functional Ecology sheds light on why. Research by scientists from Harvard, UMass Amherst, Boston University, and MIT reveals that a tree's carbohydrate reserves are crucial to surviving an onslaught of hungry caterpillars.