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Incoming! Association of landscape features with dispersing mountain pine beetle populations during a range expansion event in western Canada

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Abstract

Mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae), is a forest insect that undergoes intermittent population eruptions, causing landscape-level mortality to mature pines. Currently, an outbreak covers over 16.3 million ha of British Columbia and Alberta in western Canada. Recent incursion into the jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.) of northwestern Alberta threatens further range expansion through the boreal forest to central and eastern Canada. The spread from British Columbia into northwestern Alberta has been facilitated by above-canopy dispersal of the insect by meso-scale atmospheric currents. At these scales, dispersing D. ponderosae may behave like inert particles, causing terrain-induced tropospheric convective and advective currents to influence population dispersal and establishment. We use spatial point process regression models to examine the association of meso-scale variables, including landscape features and their orientations, habitat suitability, elevation and treatment efforts, with occurrence of D. ponderosae infestations in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Infestations of D. ponderosae primarily established in canyons and valleys, before moving into more open-sloped areas. Southwestern slopes of midslope ridges and small hills, southwest facing open slopes, and valleys that run in a northeast–southwest cardinal direction were positively associated with higher intensities of infestation. This study provides insight into the influences of complex terrain on landscape disturbance by a forest insect, and can be used to prioritize areas for potential management.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this study was provided by the TRIA project of Genome British Columbia, Genome Alberta, and Genome Canada. MPB Initiative—Natural Resources Canada and NSERC Discovery grants to BHA and Pacific Forestry Centre Graduate Student and Association of Professional Biologists awards to HMdlG. We thank B. Pate (West Fraser Timber Ltd.), C. Johnson (Canadian Forest Products Ltd.), G. Thandi (Canadian Forest Service), A. McGill (Alberta Sustainable Resource Development), and P. Bai (UNBC) for logistical and technical support. T. Shore and B. Riel (Canadian Forest Service), provided stand susceptibility index data. A. Baddeley (University of Western Australia) and J. Zhu (Department of Statistics, UW-Madison), provided statistical advice on model implementation. J. Jenness (Jenness Enterprises Ltd.) provided the Topographic Position Index tool v. 1.3a for Arcview 3.2. The authors also thank the assistance and support of M. Duthie-Holt, M. Klingenberg, F. McKee, S. Allen, S. Wesche, and D. Linton. Thesis external examiner T. Nelson (U Victoria), associate editor T. Wiegand (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany), and two anonymous reviewers provided valuable comments on an earlier draft.

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  1. University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, V2N 4Z9, Canada

    Honey-Marie C. de la Giroday, B. Staffan Lindgren & Brian H. Aukema

  2. Department of Forest Sciences, University of British Columbia, 3034 Forest Sciences Centre, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Allan L. Carroll

  3. Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, 1980 Folwell Ave, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Brian H. Aukema

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  1. Honey-Marie C. de la Giroday
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Correspondence to Honey-Marie C. de la Giroday.

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de la Giroday, HM.C., Carroll, A.L., Lindgren, B.S. et al. Incoming! Association of landscape features with dispersing mountain pine beetle populations during a range expansion event in western Canada. Landscape Ecol 26, 1097–1110 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-011-9628-9

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