Bark Beetle Attacks on Ponderosa Pine Following Fire in Northern Arizona

By Charles W. McHugh, Thomas E. Kolb, Jill L. Wilson. 2003

170 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract There is little quantitative information on relationships between insect attacks and fire damage for ponderosa pine, Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex Lawson, in the southwestern United States. Tree mortality and insect attacks were measured on 1,367 trees for three years after a spring wildfire (4 May 1996), a summer wildfire (20 June 1996), and a fall prescribed fire (9 September 1995) in northern Arizona. Western pine beetle, Dendroctonus brevicomis LeConte, mountain pine beetle, D. ponderosae Hopkins, roundheaded pine beetle, D. adjunctus Blandford, red turpentine beetle, D. valens LeConte, Ips species, and wood borers in the Buprestidae and Cerambycidae families were found in fire-damaged trees. The most frequently occurring insects, listed from most to least frequent, were wood borers, red turpentine beetle, Ips spp., western pine beetle, roundheaded pine beetle, and mountain pine beetle. Trees attacked by Dendroctonus and Ips spp. as a group had more crown damage from fire than unattacked trees. The percentage of trees attacked by Dendroctonus and Ips species was lowest during the fall fire (11%, 25 of 222 trees), intermediate during the summer fire (19%, 154 of 833 trees), and highest during the spring fire (41%, 127 of 312 trees). More than one-half of all wood borer colonization (58%) and attacks by western pine beetle (68%), roundheaded pine beetle (56%), and Ips spp. (66%) occurred in the first year after the fire. Measures of tree damage from fire and insect attacks were used to develop logistic regression models of tree mortality to quantitatively investigate factors that influenced tree mortality. Tree mortality 3 yr postfire was low until crown damage by fire exceeded 70–80% for unattacked trees, 40–50% for trees with partial attacks by Dendroctonus and Ips species, and 30–40% for trees with mass attacks. We concluded that several Dendroctonus and Ips species colonize fire-damaged ponderosa pines in northern Arizona and colonization is promoted by heavy crown damage from fire.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/366e5b0688357bfe8b199a059fccc1e3f193538c

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Citations in the corpus

Overstory tree mortality resulting from reintroducing fire to long-unburned longleaf pine forests: the importance of duff moisture (2007, background): “The mechanism responsible for increased mortality caused by restoration fires is unclear, with different investigators emphasizing damage to canopy (Ryan and Reinhardt 1988; Menges and Deyrup 20011, stem vascular tissue (Ryan and Frandsen 1991; McHugh and Kolb 2003), and root tissues (Swezy and Agee”
Effects of fire and mechanical wounding on Pinus resinosa resin defenses, beetle attacks, and pathogens (2006, unknown): “Fire is sometimes followed by bark beetle outbreaks (Geiszler et al., 1980; Dixon et al., 1984; Geiszler et al., 1984; Ehnstrom et al., 1995; McCullough et al., 1998; McHugh et al., 2003), which can, in turn lead to wild fires (Geiszler et al.”
Perpetuating old ponderosa pine (2007, background): “, 1998, 2006) and thus may be a better food source for phloem-feeding insects, such as the western pine beetle that can cause tree mortality after fire (Miller and Keen, 1960; McHugh et al., 2003; Breece, 2006).”
Prescribed Fire Effects on Bark Beetle Activity and Tree Mortality in Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests (2008, methodology): “The red turpentine beetle frequently attacks fire-damaged trees (McHugh et al., 2003), but seldom kills them directly; however it may predispose trees to fatal attack by other beetle species (Bradley and Tueller, 2001).”
Effects of Crown Scorch on Ponderosa Pine Resistance to Bark Beetles in Northern Arizona (2003, background): “Ponderosa pines with heavy crown scorch have been reported to be more heavily colonized by bark beetles than lightly scorched trees in several studies (Miller and Keen 1960, Fischer 1980, Mitchell and Martin 1980, Agee 1993, McHugh et al. 2003), and this was also true in our study.”
Tree mortality from fire and bark beetles following early and late season prescribed fires in a Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forest (2006, background): “Although several previous studies have suggested that burning in the early season may have more severe effects on trees than burning in the late season (Harrington, 1987, 1993; Swezy and Agee, 1991; McHugh et al., 2003), there was no evidence that early season burns resulted in increased direct mort”
Interactions among fire, insects and pathogens in coniferous forests of the interior western United States and Canada (2006, background): “Alternatively, fire damage during high-intensity fires may predispose trees to decays ( Littke & Gara, 1986 ) and insect attack ( Furniss & Carolin, 1977; Fischer, 1980; Flanagan, 1996; McHugh et al. , 2003 ).”
Interactions among the Mountain Pine Beetle, Fires, and Fuels (2014, background): “Although in some studies the MPB response to mixed-severity wildfire was minimal (Rasmussen et al. 1996, McHugh et al. 2003), recent studies attribute significant tree mortality to MPB after wildfire (see Effects of MixedSeverity Wildfire on MPB).”
Restoring Fire to Long‐Unburned Pinus palustris Ecosystems: Novel Fire Effects and Consequences for Long‐Unburned Ecosystems (2005, background): “Past work on southeastern (Davidson & Hayes 1999) and western U.S. conifers (Covington et al. 1997; Ryan 2000; McHugh et al. 2003; Wallin et al. 2003, 2004) has demonstrated that increased physiological stress renders trees more susceptible to pest and pathogen attack.”