Pine Beetle Kill

[truth]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...zQxNzMxWj.html

* U.S. NEWS
* OCTOBER 14, 2009

Aspen Trees Die Across the West
Mysterious Ailment, in Wake of Pine-Beetle Invasion, Diminishes Fall Foliage

By STEPHANIE SIMON

DENVER -- This should be the golden season across the West, when aspen paint hillsides in shades of fall. But a mysterious ailment -- or perhaps a combination of factors -- is killing hundreds of thousands of acres of the trees from Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona through Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and into Canada, according to the U.S. government and independent scientists.

The aspen die-off comes on the heels of a pine-beetle invasion that has destroyed millions of acres of evergreens. Foresters expect to lose virtually every mature lodgepole pine in Colorado -- five million acres of them.

Aspen and lodgepole pine intermingle across many Rocky Mountain slopes at elevations of 5,000 to 8,000 feet. Millions of the trees are now down or brown, transforming the landscape into a huge fire risk. To the dismay of hunters, the dying trees are decimating habitat crucial to elk, as well as to such smaller animals as wolverine, lynx and yellow-bellied marmot.

State and local officials fear a drop-off in fall-foliage tourism, and residents complain about diminished views. "It makes a big brown hole in the fall colors. A whole lot of brown holes," said Rod Sweet, who lives in Durango, Colo.

Researchers believe they understand why the beetles have been thriving. Temperatures in the mountains have been unusually warm over the past several winters, and it takes a long, hard freeze to kill beetle larvae. Also, decades of logging restrictions and a policy of fighting most fires rather than letting them burn have left the forests full of the century-old lodgepole pines that are the beetles' favorite nosh.

What is killing the aspen is unclear.

In 2002, the U.S. Forest Service began investigating reports that entire stands of aspen were dying in the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado, and in an odd way. Usually when mature aspen fail, they send out hundreds of new shoots, called suckers, through their root systems. Those shoots sprout quickly, and the grove regenerates.

But in the San Juans, the shoots were dying, too, or were failing to sprout. That phenomenon was named Sudden Aspen Decline, or SAD, but scientists say they don't fully understand it.

The U.S. Forest Service conducted an aerial survey in Colorado in 2005 and spotted about 30,000 acres of dying aspen. Last year, that figure climbed to 540,000 acres, or about 15% of the state's aspen forest, according to the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station.

It is impossible to tell from the air if those trees are suffering from SAD, or a run-of-the-mill pest or fungus that takes down the mature aspen but allows groves to regenerate.

Years of drought in Colorado, Utah and elsewhere appear to have severely stressed some aspen, leaving them susceptible to systemic disease, said Dale Bartos, an aspen ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service.

In northern Arizona, wildlife may be the culprit: With the wolf population down, elk aren't often on the run from predators, giving them plenty of time to hunker in an aspen grove and methodically eat every sucker.
[Aspen] Jim Worrall/US Forest Service

Dead and dying aspen in July at Colorado's Gunnison National Forest.

Fire suppression, which has been emphasized as more homes are built in forested areas, may play a role, because fires typically spur regeneration. Another theory is the tree die-off is part of a normal progression -- albeit on an unusually broad scale -- of aspen giving way to conifer forests or alpine grassland.

"We're still trying to figure out this puzzle," said Paul Rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University who runs the Western Aspen Alliance, a coalition of forest scientists studying the problem.

So far, the die-off has spared some favorite vistas. Karl Storch, who runs Sun Tours out of Albuquerque, N.M., said his recent Colorado Aspen Color tour had a disappointing jog through the San Juan Mountains but found spectacular foliage in a most appropriate spot: the town of Aspen.

Fall-foliage tourism overall was down this year, said Jim Durr, a board member of the Colorado Tourism Office. He said aspen deaths were partly at fault, along with the weak economy.

It could get worse. "SAD is progressing at an exponential rate," said Wayne Shepperd, who led research into aspen decline at the U.S. Forest Service before retiring to teach at Colorado State University.

And it has left many locals reeling. "My God, it was a sad year," said landscape photographer Richard Voninski.

Some of his colleagues photograph the stark skeletons of dying trees, but Mr. Voninski said he could not bring himself to do that.

"I know what it's supposed to look like," he said.

Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com

[f2f]

[Goatski]

aspens are fickle weed-like trees - very susceptible to disease... aphids, scale, marucelliana, etc... or how about all those early season freezing temps that zapped the foliage into an olive green death surrender this year, much to the dismay of the leaf-peepers

i thought this thread was about lodgepole pine death and how it affects backcountry skiing in the rockies. i just wish dead lodgepoles were as fun and easy to topple as dead aspens.

on the bright side, there is alot more easy & light timber out there for backcountry shack building (or inbounds smoke shacks). get to work rocky mtn. maggots!

[shera]

on the bright side, there is alot more easy & light timber out there for backcountry shack building (or inbounds smoke shacks). get to work rocky mtn. maggots!

Clearly there is a void in leadership.

[Meanfruit]

.

the forest companys have a lot to lose if they let fire get at their resource. there is an unprecidented amount of mature pine out there. Just wait for the unprecidented firestorm. Boom Shiva!

And there you have it. This is the reason we have billions of dead pecker poles in U.S/Canada. This is the reason the bugkill will never go away. Money. People will lose money if the forests were to burn.

Maybe now Revelstoke will have more alpine

[marketsherpa]

Adam- I suggest you confront this problem the way you always have: continue to be a vegetarian for socio-political reasons, use sustainable products, instead of having a job like everyone else, organize a community outreach program, make pungent inedible casseroles, have lots of gay friends, wear a fair trade t-shirt from Sri Lanka, and present your detractors with a tiny cup of camomile tea and give them some literature about Darfur.

[Lone Star]

pecker poles

huh huh you said pecker poles

[donutlynx]

Has anyone commenting in this thread actually studied forestry or NR? I'd like to hear an informed opinion.

Yep.

The average fire return intervals in your average western lodgepole stand is very short, about 10 years. This means in a natural (not anthropogenically altered) stands, fire is expected to return and burn through an area once every 10 years.

When natural occurring fires (lightning strikes) burn an area with a natural fuel density, those fires are usually low intensity and seldom catastrophic, as opposed to many of the fires we see now (as 99% of our National Forest fuel and fire regime has been altered by "management"). Those natural, low intensity fires clean up native stands and keep them rather healthy by keeping fuel density much lower. They also facilitate stand replacement by germinating new seed and clearing older disease vulnerable trees.

In Oregon and Washington (as well as other places) pine beetles are infesting much more than lodgepole pine. Douglas fir, our dominant conifer, is also highly susceptible to the attack of the beetle. From the lifts on Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon, you can see vast acreages of beetle killed stands, which are spreading my hundreds of acres every year.

The obvious long-term solution to the control the persistence and spread of the pine-beetle is somewhat obvious, reintroduce fire to our forests.

Thats at least what I've learned, in my studies and experiences... Climatic changes may have an impact, but its the forest 'management' itself that is to blame.

Seriously? You talk about mFRIs for natural stands being 10ish years, and follow it up with 99% of stands have been altered. Then mention low-intensity fire regime and stand replacement in the same sentence? I'm not following.

Is Douglas-fir really highly susceptible to mountain pine beetle? No. Do you know how many acres of lodgepole are visible from the Bachelor lifts? Lots.

The reintroduction of fire, moving towards a semi-historic regime, could possibly help reduce the spread of MPB. But MPB outbreaks occur both in well-distributed stands with large trees as well as dense stands filled with small trees. Forest health may be a better indicator. Reintroducing fire after manipulating stand structure and composition might lead to a forest that may prove more resistant to outbreaks. This could also alleviate the potential for catastrophic fire, which we'd like to avoid.

I'm assuming that by 'management' you mean the lack thereof.

Go read some scientific journal articles people.

*the journals I've read indicate the global climate change, in particular the current warming that's occurring, allows the pine beetle larvae to survive the winter cold weather kill-off that helped regulate the beetle population. Although, the research I've read also tends to agree with you, ie. global climate change may not be a primary effect, and forest management likely are. I think that both of the aforementioned processes reinforce the beetle population growth to a significant extent and have allowed for their territorial expansion.

The potential does exist for there to be an effect from both the lack of management and climate change. Perhaps, if the forest had been managed for overall health, the increase in beetle population may not have been as destructive.

This is exactly our local experience.

Boulder Mountain Parks cored trees to measure fire intervals and pre-European fire interval averaged about 13 years (across Ponderosa pine, fir, and lodgepole pine stands I think). After European arrival, the fire interval was not measurable, since most stands had all fires suppressed. Pre-Euro regular burns created a park-like forest, especially with widely spaced Ponderosa pines surrounded by grass/brush and protected by their corky bark.

One question that coring cannot answer is how many fires prior to Euro arrival were set by the local Utes. Fire was clearly used as hunting/land management tool, so the question of what is "natural" gets a little more complicated, but the ecosystem is clearly fire-adapted.

What, exactly, does an average mFRI that includes both pre-and post-settlement conditions, as well as three different species (within three different fire regimes) tell us about increased susceptibility for MPB attacks?

Also, does it matter how historical fire regimes were induced? Anthropogenic or natural - the mFRI was what it was. And all fire were suppressed post-Euro settlement?

Well, yes and no. Eventually fire/fuel reduction is the answer, but to let fires just run rampant from day 1 has many problems of its own... as mentioned, our higher fuel densities now can and will create catastrophic fires...but really, yes.. I fully believe in controlled burns and fuel reduction projects.

Let's get this straight. Manipulate structure and composition, then prescribe fire if necessary.

I know you're mostly typing this insanely boring diatribe only to impress those easily impressed by your dweeb talk.......but you and I probably already agree that fire suppression is only making matters worse, and....like most things in life, battling nature only causes more problems.

Blurred mentioned drought earlier, and that was a very good point. He makes another good one here.

With all due respect, what have you been reading? The current scientific consensus is that the pre-european (and current) fire regime in subalpine lodgepole forest consists of infrequent, severe, stand-replacing crown fires, and the driver is climate not fuels. I don't have a number in front of me but I believe the typical return interval is on the order of 150 years. If you want references I can give you plenty, but Schonennagel (2003) gives a good review. Here is a direct quote:

"Therefore, it is unlikely that the short period of fire exclusion has significantly altered the long fire intervals in subalpine forests (Romme and Despain 1989, Johnson et al. 2001, Veblen 2003)."

More fire would slow pine beetle spread by making their habitat less contiguous, but they don't appear to be limited by dispersal in this current outbreak. I guess the big "plus" of more fire would be is that they can't infest stands that are already dead.

Remember, and I say this with all due respect: Schoennagel is a landscape ecologist. Her position is that we shouldn't manage the forest unless it is to mimic nature's historical pattern. Does she take into account the effects of harvesting/mismanagement? Or are we still dealing with a "natural" forest here? Maybe it could be beneficial to actually manage the forest in order to mimic nature. I don't know, but I think I'm catching sarcasm in your last sentence?

Googling around the fire regime in lodgepole stands seems highly location dependent. But the longer intervals you quote tend to be for severe stand-replacing fires, while lower/moderate intensity fires were much more frequent. Even within a singe range, fire intervals varied widely, so fire intervals between lodgepole in Colorado, California, and BC would also be expected to vary tremendously.

"CONCLUSIONS
The frequency of pre-EuroAmerican fires found at most lodgepole pine sites was not expected.These patterns of fire occurrence and severity suggest a mixed-severity fire regime and that large stand replacing fire events were rare in the southern Sierra. Additionally, there were mixeddegrees of synchronization among associated sites with strong evidence that some fires coveredlarge areas (many hundreds of hectares). Overall, the results suggest than at least in the southernSierra Nevada, fire played an important direct role in the dynamics of most lodgepole pineforests."

Oh Googliscious. mFRI can be influenced, sometimes heavily, by location. As for the conclusions, how much of an issue is MPB damage in the southern Sierra Nevada?

Non anthropogenic fire return intervals vary a bit more, with lodgepole having a shorter interval than pondo or fir. Anthropogenic fire intervals can be hard to measure accurately, due to the lower intensity when the interval falls to a very low number. Our estimate in the oak savannah was an actual return interval of probably 3 to 4 years in a measured 12 to 20 scarring. Results with pine might vary; very different fuels.

One thing that bugs me is all the beetles flying in your face when you're fighting a pine fire.

Other than that, there is a lot of stupidity in this thread.

Lodgepole with a shorter mFRI than ponderosa?

[Lone Star]

^^^good post.

What I wanna know how's this beetle kill thing gonna affect my elk hunt next year? in five years? ten? twenty? for my kids? grandchildren?

[kevin mueller]

Hi All,

Folks are throwing around alot of misleading and sometimes incorrect information on forest science 101. Lodgepole Pine has a mean (average) fire return interval on the order of hundreds of years, not 10, for example. It also depends on periodic stand replacing events, namely Mountain Pine Beetle and crown fire. In most of the interior west it would be replaced by later succesional true fir and spruce without stand replacing disturbances.

Douglas fir has very different issues and a different beetle, not MPB.

Please try googling "What is the lifecycle of lodgepole pine?" One of the first links is a power point (PPT) done by the BLM. It is 8mb - large. It is worth flipping through.

Regarding aspen: It has survived each interglacial period, and will do the same with this one.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Blurred]

^^^good post.

What I wanna know how's this beetle kill thing gonna affect my elk hunt next year? in five years? ten? twenty? for my kids? grandchildren?

You Elk hunting?

Hahahahahahahha

[Lone Star]

laugh it up Mr. I killed a moose when I was 18 and it scarred me for life

ahahahahahahahahaha

[telestoner]

Nice post NlytendOne, you're on it. I didn't represent it well at all, but the point of the Schoennagel paper was that different rocky mtn forest types and locations have different fire regimes. Lodgepole stands (around here anyway) are dense and have lots of understory branches. When weather conditions are right, they go, and they go big, and the return intervals are long. In the absence of fire suppression, Ponderosa pine stands tend to have frequent low-severity fires that clean out the understory. The implication is that fuels management is kind of a lost cause in the lodgepole, whereas it makes a lot of sense in ponderosa.

For all the climate change haters:
The paper that convinced me climate change is real can be found here http://domex.nps.edu/corp/files/govdocs1/922/922473.pdf
Yeah, there are astronomical cycles that cause the ice ages etc, but if that was all that was going in we'd be in a gradual cooling trend. I know this isn't what they're telling us on fox news, but its consistent with increased CO2 in the atmosphere and most people who put some effort into understanding it would agree that it's for real. Whether its good or bad is another question, but as a skier I don't like it. I attached a plot of reconstructed N hemisphere avg temp from that paper but couldn't figure out how to embed it.

[Blurred]

laugh it up Mr. I killed a moose when I was 18 and it scarred me for life

ahahahahahahahahaha

Have you ever even been hunting?

[Johnny Deep]

laugh it up Mr. I killed a moose when I was 18 and it scarred me for life

ahahahahahahahahaha

Good thing ya had the sense to stay the fukk out of politics.

[grrrr]

Yep.


Lodgepole with a shorter mFRI than ponderosa?

Sorry, I was thinking faster than I was typing. Switch pondo and lodgepole and you get what I was trying to say.

[gretch6364]

laugh it up Mr. I killed a moose when I was 18 and it scarred me for life

ahahahahahahahahaha

Man, that must of really fucked up your car. Moose are huge!

[Blurred]

laugh it up Mr.


I killed a moose when I was 18 and it scarred me for life

ahahahahahahahahaha

Sorry, I misread this like the others.

Did you mount it on your wall?

[PowTrees]

Sorry, I was thinking faster than I was typing. Switch pondo and lodgepole and you get what I was trying to say.

In Colorado, Ponderosa grow below 8,000 feet mostly. How many Ponderosa pines do you see in Vail or Summit county? Lodgepole Pine grow from 4,000 or 5,000 feet on the front range all the way up to 10,000 feet or so. The article above is obviously wrong because many of us can see/hike through Lodgepole and Aspen above 8,000 feet growing together.

Comparing Ponderosa and Lodgepole is wrong imho. Ponderosa is a foothills favoring tree (in Colorado). Lodgepole occur all the way to treeline nearly. Not that I wouldn't love to be cruising through giant Ponderosa, that's not typical of the better places to ski. Lodgepole don't often form "Park" like forest. Lodgepole takes fire or extreme solar radiation to open the cones and pop out seeds. So generally Lodgepole Pine grow naturally in even aged stands, started after an area is burned. Lodgepole don't naturally form a dense bark that is resistant to fire, they use fire to propagate. On the other hand Ponderosa cones and their related seeds will propagate more easily. Ponderosa bark is thick and corky. Ponderosa evolved to survive small fires that create Park like forest.


Now I can think of a few places with old Lodgepole forests on/near Vail but I wouldn't qualify them as Park type forest, though they are widely spaced compared to the doghair lodgepole pine stands that are near impenetrable.

I worry most that after all the pines die on Vail mountain in about 5 years they will be replaced by dense stands of small trees which are teh suck for turns. It'll take another 10 or 20 years before the trees thin out and will be good skiing again...

[PowTrees]

As long as there is enough cover, loss of trees could actually mean more Elk. Most animals would prefer to eat grass, shrubs, and even young aspen shoots over Lodgepole Pines. In fact doghair lodgepole pine stands are pretty low in ecological diversity and ground foliage. Transformation to mixed grassland might mean more ecological diversity, more Elk, and more other animals.

Though I do worry loss of cover means snow blown away or scorched in the sun.

^^^good post.

What I wanna know how's this beetle kill thing gonna affect my elk hunt next year? in five years? ten? twenty? for my kids? grandchildren?

[adam]

Adam- I suggest you confront this problem the way you always have: continue to be a vegetarian for socio-political reasons, use sustainable products, instead of having a job like everyone else, organize a community outreach program, make pungent inedible casseroles, have lots of gay friends, wear a fair trade t-shirt from Sri Lanka, and present your detractors with a tiny cup of camomile tea and give them some literature about Darfur.

LOL

You obviously know me on a personal level.
I didn't post this thread to instigate a global warming argument, or to wag my finger at all those who would dare disagree with Al Gore. I simply thought this was an interesting article (calling it "really good" was a huge stretch). Pine beetle kill is something that I (used) to see every day, and I wanted to hear everyone's opinion on its effects.

[Lone Star]

most people believe it's only a coincidence that the mountain pine beetle has caused so much damage in the past decade. but take a look at the proliferation of wolves in this same time period. there's just too much of a connection for it to be a coincidence.

[revitup]

This is all cause of mans mismanagment. Greedy, arrogant, selfrightious fucks.
Save the planet, kill yourself!

[karpiel]

Those aren't lodgepoles, are they? Too cold and high. I heard from mgmt that Keystone will have 100% kill.

I thought that once lodge poles are all dead they attack others? O.K. Bad example, how will it effect Keystone and sol vista, both seem to face into the wind and both look fucked tree wise.

[Johnny Deep]

Certainly explains the demographics of Texas.