Climatic effects on spruce beetle and mountain pine beetle disturbances in western North America

UBC Undergraduate Research

Climatic effects on spruce beetle and mountain pine beetle disturbances in western North America Coe, Janelle

Abstract

Spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) and mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) are both primary bark beetles native to the forests of western North America. Both species have experienced extensive outbreaks in the past two decades, which are partially attributed to climate change. Although both species are affected by climate change, the manner in which they are affected differs. Mountain pine beetles disturbance levels are predominately influenced by climate change through range expansion as more pine-dominated areas become climatically suitable for their life cycles. Spruce beetles however are already found throughout the entire range of their host spruce trees and are affected through a change in development time rather than range expansion. In either case, regardless of the mechanism, climate change provides opportunities for increased disturbance levels from both spruce beetles and mountain pine beetles in western forests, creating future forest management challenges.

Item Metadata

Title	Climatic effects on spruce beetle and mountain pine beetle disturbances in western North America
Creator	Coe, Janelle
Date Issued	2011
Description	Spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) and mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) are both primary bark beetles native to the forests of western North America. Both species have experienced extensive outbreaks in the past two decades, which are partially attributed to climate change. Although both species are affected by climate change, the manner in which they are affected differs. Mountain pine beetles disturbance levels are predominately influenced by climate change through range expansion as more pine-dominated areas become climatically suitable for their life cycles. Spruce beetles however are already found throughout the entire range of their host spruce trees and are affected through a change in development time rather than range expansion. In either case, regardless of the mechanism, climate change provides opportunities for increased disturbance levels from both spruce beetles and mountain pine beetles in western forests, creating future forest management challenges.
Subject	Climate change; Mountain pine beetle; Natural disturbance; Spruce beetle
Genre	Graduating Project
Type	Text
Language	eng
Series	University of British Columbia. FRST 497
Date Available	2016-11-17
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI	10.14288/1.0075520
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/36456
Affiliation	Forestry, Faculty of; Forest Resources Management, Department of
Campus	UBCV
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Undergraduate
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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