Forests: Canadian scientists decode pine beetle genome

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
Mountain Pine Beetle. Photo by: Ward Strong, B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations

Mountain Pine Beetle. Photo courtesy Ward Strong, B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations.

Findings may help forest managers control outbreaks

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Scientists who recently completed decoding the pine beetle genome say their findings could help forest managers develop ways to manage the epidemic in the future.

“We know a lot about what the beetles do,” said Christopher Keeling, a research associate at Canada’s Michael Smith Laboratories. “But without the genome, we don’t know exactly how they do it.” (more…)

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Colorado foresters say no need to spray for pine beetles

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Local company continue to offer spraying services, saying some property owners would rather be safe than sorry

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Pine beetle populations have dropped to the lowest level in 30 years in parts of the Colorado high country. Bob Berwyn photo.

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — While some local property owners report that they’re getting advertisements from local tree spraying companies about protecting lodgepole pines from mountain pine beetles, state officials say there’s no need to apply pesticides this year.

“Mountain pine beetle numbers are the lowest they’ve been in 30 years,” said Ron Cousineau, district state forester for the area covering Summit and Grand counties. “The mountain pine beetle population has crashed … spraying has to be based on an actual threat,” he said. “The current population of pine beetles does not warrant spraying.”

Essentially, the bugs have killed most of the available trees. With very few brood trees remaining, beetle populations aren’t likely to reach epidemic levels again anytime soon. The latest forest surveys showed pine beetle activity on only about 200 acres in Summit County last year, with only a few pockets of trees within those areas affected by the beetles. (more…)

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Study: Colorado forests not doomed

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
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New dawn for Colorado’s beetle-killed forests.

Intensive research shows vigorous regrowth in beetle-killed tracts

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — After years of uncertainty over the future of Colorado’s forest landscapes, a new study by U.S. Forest Service scientists puts the recent pine epidemic into perspective.

The insect outbreak ultimately will result in more diverse and resilient forests in the long run, adding structural complexity and species diversity, researchers with the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station concluded after carefully monitoring regrowth in beetle-killed stands.

New growth is surging under the dying lodgepole canopy with the vertical growth rate of lodgepole and fir doubling in beetle-killed areas that were left untreated after the epidemic. Harvested stands also showed strong lodgepole regrowth, with aspen gaining ground in some places.

“Forests come and go … It’s not a crisis, but this was an amazing synchronism,” Forest Service biogeochemist Chuck Rhoades said of the massive pine beetle outbreak that will alter the forest landscape of the Southern Rockies for generations to come.

The bugs swarmed across vast swaths of the Canadian Rockies; they’ve invaded the Front Range and moved east to the Dakotas, especially the forests of the Black Hills.

“This event is not over, but the fear part should be over,” said Rhoades, who, with a team of researchers from the Fort Collins-based Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, has been carefully studying regeneration in beetle-killed areas. “But the idea of forest health and maintaining forest ecosystem processes is something we’ll always be thinking about,” he said. (more…)

Filed under: Colorado, Environment, Forest health, forests, pine beetles, pine beetles and wildfires, public lands, US Forest Service | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Colorado: Pine beetle epidemic wanes

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Spruce beetle infestation grows in southwestern mountains

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Aerial surveys show that spruce beetles are spreading in SW Colorado, while pine beetles slow their attack in the northern and central part of the state.

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The spread of mountain pine beetles slowed to levels last seen in 2003.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Mountain pine beetle activity in Colorado dropped dramatically in 2012, to the lowest level in 10 years, according to state and federal officials who this week released the the results of their latest aerial surveys.

Mountain pine beetles are still spreading across parts of the mountains between Estes Park and Leadville, but new activity was reported on just 31,000 acres, down from 141,000 acres in 2011. Since the outbreak started in 1996, beetles killed trees across more than 3.4 million acres, but it’s important to remember that not every single tree died.

In the aftermath of the infestation, foresters are finding that pockets of younger trees survived the wave of beetles, even in the hardest-hit areas. (more…)

Filed under: agriculture, climate and weather, Colorado, Environment, Forest health, forests, pine beetles | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Pointing the way to pine beetle control, but at what cost?

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
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Pine beetle-killed trees in Summit County, Colorado.

Dartmouth scientists study pine beetle population dynamics

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Dartmouth scientists say they may have found a pathway to keeping pine beetles in check, showing that their populations fluctuate between extremes, with no middle ground.

“That is different from most species, such as deer, warblers and swallowtail butterflies, whose populations tend to be regular around some average abundance based on food, weather, and other external factors,” said Matt Ayres, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Dartmouth and senior author on the paper. “They don’t appear and disappear in cycles. Rather, they exist in two stable equilibrium states—one of high abundance and the other of scarcity.”

Once the population pendulum swings toward the high end, it won’t quickly or easily swing back, Ayres explained.

According to the new study, forest managers might be able to keep pine beetle populations at the low end of the scale by boosting competitor and predator beetle populations — but they don’t address how that could affect the overall equilibrium of forest ecosystems, especially those where older trees need a change agent like bark beetles to spur regeneration. (more…)

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Colorado: Study shows pine beetle invasion hasn’t led to serious nitrogen pollution in forest watersheds

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Nature mitigates its own impacts

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Young trees and brush are increasing their nitrogen uptake in the wake of the pine beetle infestation, helping to minimize impacts to water quality. Bob Berwyn photo.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Early fears that the bark beetle epidemic could degrade water quality are proving unfounded, according to CU-Boulder scientists, who said smaller trees and undergrowth that survive the epidemic have increased their uptake of nitrogen as the older trees die.

While logging or damaging storms can drive stream nitrate concentrations up by 400 percent for multiple years, the team found no significant increase in the nitrate concentrations following extensive pine beetle tree mortality in a number of Colorado study areas, according to CU-Boulder Professor William Lewis. (more…)

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Forests: CU study traces evolution of pine beetle outbreak

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Beetle-killed lodgepole pines dominate the landscape in many parts of Summit County.

2002 drought played key role in accelerating insect invasion

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Drought conditions in the early 2000s helped pine beetle populations surge to unprecedented levels, according to a new University of Colorado study that charts the evolution of the current pine beetle epidemic in the southern Rocky Mountains.

But even when the drought eased, the outbreak continued to gain ground, spreading into wetter and higher elevations and into less susceptible tree stands — those with smaller diameter lodgepoles sharing space with other tree species, according to CU-Boulder doctoral student Teresa Chapman.

“In recent years some researchers have thought the pine beetle outbreak in the southern Rocky Mountains might have started in one place and spread from there,” said Chapman. “What we found was that the mountain pine beetle outbreak originated in many locations. The idea that the outbreak spread from multiple places, then coalesced and continued spreading, really highlights the importance of the broad-scale drivers of the pine beetle epidemic like climate and drought.” (more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, Colorado, Environment, Forest health, forests, global warming, pine beetles | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Climate trends to trigger massive change in SW forests

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

A thermal emission sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this view of the Waldo Canyon, Colorado burn scar. 2012,  Vegetation-covered land is red in the false-color image, which includes both visible and infrared light. Patches of unburned forest are bright red, in contrast with areas where flecks of light brown indicate some burning. The darkest brown areas are the most severely burned.

Current conditions already reaching historic megadrought levels with widespread tree deaths expected in coming decades

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Forests of the southwestern U.S. may be on the verge of dramatic changes in the coming decades, as a warming climate may squeeze many species of their narrow ecological niche.

New research shows that Southwest drought conditions in recent years are as intense as they were during the historic megadroughts of the 1200s and 1500s.

Southwestern forests grow best when total winter precipitation is high combined with a summer and fall that aren’t too hot and dry, but many climate models suggest the region will be warmer and drier. New Mexico just experienced its driest 24-month stretch on record.

If those conditions persist, it would likely result in widespread tree deaths and significant changes in the distribution of species on a regional landscape level, according to a new report published in the journal Nature Climate Change last week.

To measure the impacts of climate change, the scientists developed a stress index, factoring winter precipitation, late summer and fall temperatures, and late summer and fall precipitation into one number. (more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, Environment, forest fires, Forest health, forests, global warming, pine beetles | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Forest mortality declines across the U.S.

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Pine beetles running out of food, spruce beetle infestation growing

Mountain pine beetle mortality is on the decline across the western U.S.

Spruce and fir mortality is on the increase in Colorado.

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — Tree mortality from insects and diseases has dropped dramatically in the past few years, mainly because mountain pine beetles are running out of food, according to a new report from the U.S. Forest Service.

But the next significant cycle of insect infestation has already reached epidemic proportions in the south-central Rockies, where spruce beetles are devastating stands of mature spruce trees. The spruce beetle outbreak has been especially intense in the San Juans, where the bugs have killed almost every single mature tree from the creek bottoms all the way up to high-elevation krummholz.

It will be interesting to see if the numbers go back up after this summer’s drought weakened trees across the region.

(more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, Colorado, Drought, Environment, Forest health, forests, pine beetles, US Forest Service | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Summit County: Task force to provide overview and update of local forest health efforts

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Learn more about local forest conditions this week with the Summit Forest Health Task Force.

Aug. 29 lunch meeting includes info on local logging and restoration

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Local forests appear to be starting a comeback from a decade-long pine beetle invasion that killed up to 75 percent of mature lodgepole pines in the area, says Howard Hallman, co-director of the Summit Forest Health Task Force, which has been tracking the course of the epidemic and working with stakeholders to spur mitigation and restoration efforts.

The task force is hosting a lunchtime roundtable this week (Aug. 29) to update the community on beetle-kill logging projects in the area, as well as on efforts to monitor the state of local forests in the wake of the insect outbreak. The meeting is at the Mt. Royal Room in the County Commons and includes pizza, salad and drinks. (more…)

Filed under: Colorado, Environment, Forest health, forests, pine beetles, pine beetles and wildfires, Summit County Colorado, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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