Factors governing outbreak dynamics in a forest intensively managed for mountain pine beetle

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Mélodie Kunegel-Lion
  • MarkA. Lewis

• Mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreaks have caused major economic losses and ecological consequences
  in North American pine forests. Ecological and environmental factors impacting MPB life-history and
  stands susceptibility can help with the detection of MPB infested trees and thereby, improve control.
  Temperatures, water stress, host characteristics, and beetle pressure are among those ecological and
  environmental factors. They play diferent roles on MPB population dynamics at the various stages
  of an outbreak and these roles can be afected by intensive management. However, to make detailed
  connections between ecological and environmental variables and MPB outbreak phases, a deeper
  quantitative analysis on local scales is needed. Here, we used logistic regressions on a highly-detailed
  and georeferenced data set to determine the factors driving MPB infestations for the diferent phases
  of the current isolated MPB outbreak in Cypress Hills. While we showed that the roles of ecological
  and environmental factors in a forest intensively controlled for MPB are consistent with the literature
  for uncontrolled forests, we determined how these factors shifted through onset, peak, and collapse
  phases of the intensively controlled forest. MPB presence mostly depends on nearby beetle pressure,
  notably for the outbreak peak. However additional weather and host variables are necessary to achieve
  high predictive ability for MPB outbreak locations. Our results can help managers make appropriate
  decisions on where and how to focus their efort, depending on which phase the outbreak is in.

• Date created

  2020-05-05

• Subjects / Keywords

  • mountain pine beetle
  • forest
  • outbreak dynamics

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-wrgs-1335

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International