Jul

1

This is a complicated ecological subject of a cyclical nature:

"This may be the largest epidemic we've experienced, but it's far from our first," says Sky Stephens, entomologist for the Colorado State Forest Service. "We had a lot of forests of uniform age, very limited forest-management activities, and we've spent a lot of time suppressing fire. All of this allowed a very large percentage of Colorado's pine forests to enter their most susceptible life phase at the same time. And then we had a significant period of drought."

Beetles thrive in drought years. Pines respond to beetle attacks by oozing resin, "pitching out" the invaders, but a lack of water weakens that defense process. Well-watered trees have been known to drive out thousands of beetles; a drought-plagued tree can succumb to a handful. If the beetles manage to set up house in the tree bark, they infect the tree with a blue-stain fungus that serves to nourish their young while strangling the tree's hydrology and eventually killing it.

……"The forests are going to look more like what they were when the European settlers came to Colorado," Mitton says. "That's not an awful thing. Once the aspen are doing well, the lodgepole will come back and shade them out — and there we go again."'


Are the beetles setting the stage for larger, more severe wildfires? And are fires bringing on beetle epidemics? Contrary to popular opinion, the answer to both questions seems to be "no."


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search