Mountain Pine Beetle Research Paper

Biological Issue. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://averillbiology.blogspot.com/2011/01/redwood-trees-devastating-deforestation.html CHAPTER FOUR: ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS: THE TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT. (1998). Environmental Management Handbook, 177-192.

However, forests around the world are under threat from deforestation, jeopardizing these benefits. Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. This impacts people’s livelihoods and threatens a wide range of plant and animal species. Some 46-58 thousand square miles of forest are lost each year, which is equivalent to 36 football fields every minute.

Forests in Northern Arizona that the tribal communities depend upon are currently threatened by climate change. Ecosystems with high and rising temperatures, such as Northern Arizona, are susceptible to drought. In turn, the decrease in precipitation due to droughts leads to an overall reduction in growth as well as health for plants. A study concerning Northern Arizona forest found that tree mortality increased 200% from 1997-2002 to 2002-2007 in mixed-conifer forests and 74% in ponderosa pine forests. This tree mortality can be traced back to forest insects like bark beetles as well as long-term drought stress throughout the ecosystem (Ganey & Vojta, 162). Insects such as the spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis), pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), and especially piñon ips beetle (Ips spp.) threaten forests (MacDonald & Turner, 21260). Climate change causes tree mortality as overall warming leads to greater beetle reproduction as well as greater range of beetle territory (MacDonald

Yet, water limitations are reducing the capacity of black spruce. With a decrease of the Black Spruce species within this ecosystem, there will be inevitably less trees to fix carbon. With the inability for a biological system to convert carbon dioxide to organic compound, this leaves CO2 within the atmosphere, increasing the Greenhouse house gas effect and thus surface temperatures. Additionally, supporting the fact that future warming may result in drought stress, further prohibiting the growth of the Black Spruce species. This affect is bound to trigger a compositional change, consequently impacting the whole ecosystem. This should not be considered unanticipated information, seeing as there is a direct relationship between vegetation and climate change in boreal ecosystems. Warm climates may not be suitable for all species within that habitat, so species will naturally migrate as the temperature increases. Forest fires alone can have long-lasting effects on the environment, in terms of community succession, which has been briefly

The mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae) is a native insect of North America that induces pine tree mortality from bark boring infestation. On average, the MPB lives for one year with four stages of development (egg, larva, pupa and adult). The MPB remains burrowed within a host pine tree throughout all four stages of its life except in the late fall when the mature beetles leave a brood tree in search of a new reproduction site. When a MPB finds an optimal tree for infestation, pheromones are released which attract a swarm of adult beetles. After successfully burrowing into the Pine bark, egg galleries are created for the 75 eggs each female will lay, and these eggs develop into larvae that feed on the host tree's phloem.

Tiny, winged pine beetles have been the ecological bad guys of the West for more than a decade, and rightfully so. They've killed off millions of acres' worth of trees in Colorado. Now all those dead trees are feeding the flames across tens of thousands of acres in the southern part of the state.

Mountain-pine beetles have drastically changed the environment they are living in; due to this, areas such as industry, recreation, and the ecosystem have been impacted. For the last few decades the mountain- pine beetle has become a huge problem in the Rocky Mountains, stretching all the way from New Mexico all the way to central Canada. More than 60 million acres of forest have been infected, which has resulted in about 60% of the mature pines across North America to be killed (Rosner, 2013). Every day hundreds of trees are felled in an effort to clear out the beetles and to rid the forest of the unsightly dead trees. Entire forests have been reduced into nothing more than standing grave yards that mark a once great ecosystem. Forest Service officials are struggling to come up with a solution to this epidemic but find their options limited due to legal framework, public opinion, and just options in general.

The authors in this article explored the following questions: Firstly, if the constant reproduction of pine beetles in whitebark pine in high elevation is a consequence of their eruption in lodgepole pine or it represent some initial changes in the system due to changes in temperature. Secondly, with changing climatic conditions how insects determine their choices of host plant species. Thirdly, what is the reaction of other natural enemies to pine beetles attack to whitebark versus lodgepole pine? They tested the hypothesis if the mountain pine beetles attack lower defensive host like whitebark pine while expanding their range to high elevations due to increasing high temperatures. Previous research suggests that either whitebark pine should

The Douglas-fir tussock moth (Orgyia pseudotsugata McDunnough) is native to the North America and inhabits the western part of the United States (Brooks et al. 1978; Figure 1). According to Brooks et al. (1978), this species of moth contributes to soil fertility in coniferous forests, but can cause problems with high populations. When these outbreaks occur, the tussock moth defoliate spruce, true firs, and Douglas-firs (Wickman et al. 1981). Defoliation directly kills trees and leaves them susceptible to secondary issues, such as slow tree growth or bark beetles (Wickman et al. 1981). This affects native forests in the interior of the United States, as outbreaks of moths have not been observed in coastal forests (Brooks et al.

Pinewood nematode is transmitted from tree to tree by pine sawyer beetles which overwinter as larvae in dead pines or pine logs which still have the bark attached. After pupating, the adult pine sawyer beetles, carrying nematodes in their tracheae, fly to healthy host pine trees where the nematodes enter through feeding wounds. Pinewood nematodes migrate to resin canals where they feed and rapidly reproduce. The resin canal system is damaged and water movement in the tree is disrupted. Once the pine tree dies the nematodes continue to feed and reproduce on blue stain fungus which infects the tree. In summer, female pine sawyer beetles carry nematodes as they fly back to dead pine wood where they lay their eggs. Eggs

As the Premier of Ontario, I have finally made the decision about the forests of Temagami. By going through everybody’s needs and wants, I have decided that not the old growth pine forests but instead, the regular forest trees are the ones that are going to be cut down for Temagami’s economy. Since cutting down no trees is not an option, the best choice left is to let our old growth trees live. Old growth forests are home to more than half of the world’s red and white pine trees. Only a tiny fraction of these forests is left and if we keep on cutting them down, we are going to lose them all. Those trees are already suffering because of the wild weather conditions in that region. Also, this way, we can leave the regular forests for the loggers

Projecting the effects of fire suppression and possible cumulative effects of fire suppression and other disturbances are vital management tasks moving forward into forestry planning strategies for the future. Although the long-term effects of fire suppression in the Pacific Northwest have been monitored since the early 1900’s, it is challenging to decipher relationships between the cumulative effects of a century of suppression alongside climate change, insect outbreaks and disease and plan how to combat them effectively.

The Kazakhstan beetle or some call it the salt cedar leaf beetle, is threating the tamarisk tree growth in the Grand Canyon and surrounding areas. The tamarisk is a brown shrubbery, a hardy tree sized plant from Central Asia, West Africa and Mediterranean brought to American in the 1800s (Cole, 2011). It has a tendency to crowd out other river plants and make the soil more saline which can change the surrounding ecosystems. They are not a good source of food and they have a tendency to increase wildfires because they dry out the land around them. So the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) decided they needed to fight the tamarisk growth and came up with the solution.

The latter was a particularly devastating infestation: in April of 2015, a total of 65,300 trees had been removed from the area due to damage caused by the Asian longhorned beetle. A further 26,000 were treated with pesticides.

There are many things that can be done by the government to stop, deforestation, clearcutting, forest fires, and Asian longhorned beetles. To stop these horrible actions done by human activities the government should spread the message and educate people about the terrible effects that these actions can have on the environment. To stop the asian longhorned beetles the government should cut the infested trees and immediately replant new trees to try and preserve as many habitats as possible and other significant