Mechanisms and Spatial Patterns of Bark Beetle-associated Mortality Following Variable Density Thinning Treatments in a Sierra Mixed-conifer Forest

Mechanisms and Spatial Patterns of Bark Beetle-associated Mortality Following Variable Density Thinning Treatments in a Sierra Mixed-conifer Forest PDF Author: Alexis Bernal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bark beetles
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Long-term trends of tree mortality have increased over the last several decades, coinciding with above-average temperatures, high climatic water deficits, and bark beetle outbreaks. With the anticipation that drought and bark beetles may increase with climate change, uncertainty exists over the appropriate treatments that could ensure the future sustainability of forest resources and the ecosystem services that forests provide. Conventional thinning treatments are used to reduce stand density, with the assumption that reductions in competition can alleviate drought stress and enable trees to resist bark beetle attack. Alternative thinning treatments may also reduce stand density, but have a greater focus on increasing spatial heterogeneity. Variable density thinning is a management method intended to mimic the spatial heterogeneity that was present in mixed-conifer forests prior to logging and fire exclusion. Although the added benefits of increasing spatial heterogeneity include biodiversity, wildlife, recreation, and restoration, information is lacking on the effects that these treatments have on tree resistance to disturbances. Since 2012, the Sierra Nevada experienced widespread tree mortality coinciding with severe drought conditions and bark beetle outbreak. This provided a unique opportunity to explore the mechanisms driving bark beetle-associated mortality following variable density thinning treatments in the central Sierra Nevada. Using dendrochronological methods, we modeled the relationship between drought resistance and bark beetle-associated mortality to evaluate if reductions in competition enhance tree resistance to bark beetles. We also determined if structural elements within variable density thinning treatments influenced the level and spatial pattern of bark beetle-associated mortality. By exploring these relationships, our findings could provide a greater understanding on the underlying mechanisms that drive mortality to disturbances and also provide information to help develop prescriptions for enhancing resistance to drought and bark beetles.

Mechanisms and Spatial Patterns of Bark Beetle-associated Mortality Following Variable Density Thinning Treatments in a Sierra Mixed-conifer Forest

Mechanisms and Spatial Patterns of Bark Beetle-associated Mortality Following Variable Density Thinning Treatments in a Sierra Mixed-conifer Forest PDF Author: Alexis Bernal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bark beetles
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Long-term trends of tree mortality have increased over the last several decades, coinciding with above-average temperatures, high climatic water deficits, and bark beetle outbreaks. With the anticipation that drought and bark beetles may increase with climate change, uncertainty exists over the appropriate treatments that could ensure the future sustainability of forest resources and the ecosystem services that forests provide. Conventional thinning treatments are used to reduce stand density, with the assumption that reductions in competition can alleviate drought stress and enable trees to resist bark beetle attack. Alternative thinning treatments may also reduce stand density, but have a greater focus on increasing spatial heterogeneity. Variable density thinning is a management method intended to mimic the spatial heterogeneity that was present in mixed-conifer forests prior to logging and fire exclusion. Although the added benefits of increasing spatial heterogeneity include biodiversity, wildlife, recreation, and restoration, information is lacking on the effects that these treatments have on tree resistance to disturbances. Since 2012, the Sierra Nevada experienced widespread tree mortality coinciding with severe drought conditions and bark beetle outbreak. This provided a unique opportunity to explore the mechanisms driving bark beetle-associated mortality following variable density thinning treatments in the central Sierra Nevada. Using dendrochronological methods, we modeled the relationship between drought resistance and bark beetle-associated mortality to evaluate if reductions in competition enhance tree resistance to bark beetles. We also determined if structural elements within variable density thinning treatments influenced the level and spatial pattern of bark beetle-associated mortality. By exploring these relationships, our findings could provide a greater understanding on the underlying mechanisms that drive mortality to disturbances and also provide information to help develop prescriptions for enhancing resistance to drought and bark beetles.

Forests & Water Guidelines

Forests & Water Guidelines PDF Author: Great Britain. Forestry Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Acid rain
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
This work advises owners and managers how woodlands and forests influence the freshwater ecosystem, and gives guidance on how operations should be carried out in order to protect and enhance the water environment. The guidelines apply equally to forest enterprises and the private sector.

Assessment and Response to Bark Beetle Outbreaks in the Rocky Mountain Area

Assessment and Response to Bark Beetle Outbreaks in the Rocky Mountain Area PDF Author: United States. Forest Health Protection
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bark beetles
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description


Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change

Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change PDF Author: Kamal J.K. Gandhi
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128224401
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change provides the most updated and comprehensive knowledge on the complex effects of global warming upon the economically and ecologically important bark beetle species and their host trees. This authoritative reference synthesizes information on how forest disturbances and environmental changes due to current and future climate changes alter the ecology and management of bark beetles in forested landscapes. Written by international experts on bark beetle ecology, this book covers topics ranging from changes in bark beetle distributions and addition of novel hosts due to climate change, interactions of insects with altered host physiology and disturbance regimes, ecosystem-level impacts of bark beetle outbreaks due to climate change, multi-trophic changes mediated via climate change, and management of bark beetles in altered forests and climate conditions. Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change is an important resource for entomologists, as well as forest health specialists, policy makers, and conservationists who are interested in multi-faceted impacts of climate change on forest insects at the organismal, population, and community-levels. The only book that addresses the impacts of global warming on bark beetles with feedback loops to forest patterns and processes Discusses altered disturbance regimes due to climate change with implications for bark beetles and associated organisms Led by a team of editors whose expertise includes entomology, pathology, ecology, forestry, modeling, and tree physiology

Infestation Pattern and Survival of Bark Beetles in Loblolly Pines Treated with Paraquat

Infestation Pattern and Survival of Bark Beetles in Loblolly Pines Treated with Paraquat PDF Author: Gordon Moore
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bark-beetles
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description


Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests (N.F.), Bark Beetle Analysis

Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests (N.F.), Bark Beetle Analysis PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description


Cutting a Course

Cutting a Course PDF Author: Jenna Elizabeth Morris
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
Bark beetle outbreaks are major natural disturbances in temperate forests across the northern hemisphere, contributing to extensive tree mortality and driving forest change. Recent widespread and severe outbreaks--and projected climate-driven changes to disturbance activity--have raised concerns about forest resilience and the interaction of future outbreaks with other disturbances (e.g., fire). Thinning (i.e., density reduction) treatments may promote resilience to bark beetles by fostering resistance or bolstering forest capacity to respond post outbreak, but opportunities to test treatment efficacy and longevity have been rare. Further, forest managers must consider the effects of thinning on additional objectives such as tradeoffs between fire hazard mitigation and carbon storage. Here, I used a replicated study of old-growth lodgepole pine stands thinned in 1940 and affected by a recent (early 2000s) severe mountain pine beetle outbreak to examine the effects of thinning on (1) components of resilience to outbreak, and (2) post-outbreak fire hazard and carbon storage. I measured stand structural attributes in the field ~8 years post-outbreak and compared resistance to beetle attack (tree- and stand-scale survival), successional trajectories, fuel profiles, and aboveground carbon biomass between uncut (control) and thinned treatment units. Thinning six decades prior to mountain pine beetle outbreak had limited effects on resistance, but additional effects of thinning on stand trajectories, surface and canopy fuel profiles, and aboveground carbon storage persisted following severe outbreak. This study broadens the temporal extent of our understanding of thinning effects on directing forest response to bark beetle outbreaks, with important implications for developing effective management decisions in the face of global change.

Patterns and Processes in Forest Landscapes

Patterns and Processes in Forest Landscapes PDF Author: Raffaele Lafortezza
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402085044
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Increasing evidence suggests that the composition and spatial configuration – the pattern – of forest landscapes affect many ecological processes, including the movement and persistence of particular species, the susceptibility and spread of disturbances such as fires or pest outbreaks, and the redistribution of matter and nutrients. Understanding these issues is key to the successful management of complex, multifunctional forest landscapes, and landscape ecology, based on a foundation of island bio-geography and meta-population dynamic theories, provides the rationale to deal with this pattern-to-process interaction at different spatial and temporal scales. This carefully edited volume represents a stimulating addition to the international literature on landscape ecology and resource management. It provides key insights into some of the applicable landscape ecological theories that underlie forest management, with a specific focus on how forest management can benefit from landscape ecology, and how landscape ecology can be advanced by tackling challenging problems in forest (landscape) management. It also presents a series of case studies from Europe, Asia, North America, Africa and Australia exploring the issues of disturbance, diversity, management, and scale, and with a specific focus on how human intervention affects forest landscapes and, in turn, how landscapes influence humans and their culture. An important reference for advanced students and researchers in landscape ecology, conservation biology, forest ecology, natural resource management and ecology across multiple scales, the book will also appeal to researchers and practitioners in reserve design, ecological restoration, forest management, landscape planning and landscape architecture.

Forest Pathology and Plant Health

Forest Pathology and Plant Health PDF Author: Matteo Garbelotto
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3038426717
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Forest Pathology and Plant Health" that was published in Forests

Beetle-pathogen Interactions in Conifer Forests

Beetle-pathogen Interactions in Conifer Forests PDF Author: Timothy Duane Schowalter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This text discusses advances in bark beetle and pathogen systematics; environmental and host factors predisposing trees to bark beetle or pathogen colonization; mechanism of interaction between bark beetles and pathogens; effects on trees and forest ecosystems; and management strategies.