It has been suggested that pests and pathogens currently represent one of the greatest threats to forests of the eastern United States. The number of forest pests has been rising steadily and most genera of common eastern trees are host to exotic pests. It has become clear that forest pests will substantially alter the forest composition, structure, and functioning of impacted stands; however, it seems as if the majority of literature on the ecology of these pests currently spreading through the region has focused narrowly on the populations of the pests (e.g. life cycle, growth, dispersal, and management) or that of the host (e.g. mortality/survivorship and management) while much less research has emphasized broader ecological consequences of these pests. This may be due in part to the relatively recent introduction of pests such as emerald ash borer and the Asian longhorned beetle and the paucity of data on the pests from their home range. In the past few years, an increasing amount of research has been undertaken to explore the impacts of forest pests on the forest community including the soil microbial community or cascading effects on small mammals or birds. Likewise, we are gaining a richer understanding of the ecosystem-scale consequences of pests including forest productivity, nutrient dynamics, and hydrology. In many of the eastern forests that are threatened or infested with pests, the loss of the host species population is likely to result in a substantially altered ecosystem, especially for foundation species, such that novel ecosystems may develop, perhaps linked to an invasional meltdown where other exotic species benefit from the increased availability of resources. In this session, our goal is to bring together ecologists from a variety of study systems to explore the broad consequences of several different pests in consideration of the status and conservation of forests of the eastern US as well as the development of novel ecosystems. We will review the status of eastern forests, then explore case studies of different pests including hemlock wooly adelgid, emerald ash borer, beech bark disease, and the gypsy moth, and how these pests influence different aspects of community composition (forest floor, soil, vertebrates) and ecosystem functioning (C and nutrient dynamics and hydrology) over a variety of spatial scales (local to regional).