Aftermath of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia: Stand Dynamics, Management Response and Ecosystem Resilience

Dhar, Amalesh; Parrott, Lael; Hawkins, Chris

doi:10.3390/f7080171

Cited by 56 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…Mining and reclamation processes severely alter soil properties and biological legacies (i.e. surviving trees, snags and logs, patches of intact vegetation, and seed banks in tree crowns or in the soil), which negatively affect the memory of the ecosystems genetic, compositional, and structural conditions prior to disturbance (Drever et al ; Dhar et al ; Dhar et al ). Moreover, slow rates of establishment, growth, and development of species following reclamation in this cool boreal climate can result in availability of unused resources and space, enabling invasion of new species in the reclaimed ecosystem.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of cover soil stockpiling on plant community development following reclamation of oil sands sites in Alberta

Dhar

Comeau

Vassov

2018

Restoration Ecology

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Stockpiling of cover soil can influence vegetation development following reclamation. Cover soil, comprising the upper 15-30 cm of the surface material on sites scheduled for mining, is commonly salvaged prior to mining and used directly or stockpiled for various lengths of time until it is needed. Salvaging and stockpiling causes physical, chemical, and biological changes in cover soils. In particular, stockpiling reduces the availability and vigor of vegetative propagules and seed, and can lead to increases in the abundance of some weedy species. This study uses data from monitoring plots to assess how stockpiling of cover soil impacts plant community development on reclaimed oil sands mine sites in northern Alberta. Development of plant communities differed distinctly between directly placed and stockpiled cover soil treatments even 18 years after reclamation. Direct placement of cover soil resulted in higher percent cover, species richness, and diversity. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and multiresponse permutation procedure revealed compositional differentiation between the treatments. Indicator species analysis showed that direct placement treatment was dominated by perennial species while grasses and annual forb species dominated sites where stockpiled soil was used. Results indicate that stockpiling leads to slower vegetation recovery while direct placement of cover soil supports more rapid succession (from ruderal and annual communities to perennial communities). In addition, direct placement may be less costly than stockpiling. However, scheduling of salvage and placement remains a challenge. Implications for Practice• Direct placement of cover soil during reclamation can facilitate establishment of a plant community with many desirable native forest understory species. • Although the trajectory of community development on the direct placement treatment follows the typical early successional progress of boreal forests, the community assembly process is unstructured and requires more time to form a stable plant community. • It is very important to consider alternative options in stockpile management in order to maintain the viability of native seed and vegetative propagules.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of cover soil stockpiling on plant community development following reclamation of oil sands sites in Alberta

Dhar

Comeau

Vassov

2018

Restoration Ecology

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“…Primary (aggressive tree-killing) bark beetles ("primaries" hereafter) periodically develop outbreaks that kill large numbers of trees over a short period of time (Raffa et al, 2015). An example is Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (mountain pine beetle), a bark beetle that has killed millions of acres of pines in North America over the last two decades (Dahr et al, 2016). The ability of primaries to have such massive effects can be distilled down to their partnerships with extremely efficient mutualist fungi coupled with a unique mass attack behaviour that overwhelms the defences of host trees that would otherwise kill their young (Six, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutualism is not restricted to tree‐killing bark beetles and fungi: the ecological stoichiometry of secondary bark beetles, fungi, and a scavenger

Six

Elser

2020

Ecological Entomology

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1. All bark beetles are in symbiosis with fungi. Although obligate mutualisms with fungi are common with tree‐killing bark beetles (primaries), fungi associated with non‐tree‐killing bark beetles (secondaries) are usually dismissed as commensals. 2. Using an ecological stoichiometric approach, we show secondaries are also involved in nutrition‐based mutualisms, some of which appear obligate, and that differences in symbiont provisioning efficiency have a potent effect on beetle carbon (C): nitrogen (N): phosphorus (P) ratios. 3. Some secondary beetles have high P contents and require efficient P provisioning via fungi, while others have low P contents that may allow them to exploit less efficient fungi or a broader range of species with variable efficiencies. A co‐occurring scavenger that feeds on nutrient‐poor bark beetle frass (excrement/boring residues) exhibited the lowest phosphorus content yet recorded for an invertebrate. 4. Our results generally support the growth‐rate hypothesis that posits differences in C:P and N:P ratios in consumers are due to differential allocation of P to P‐rich RNA to support growth. However, while the beetle species that accumulated the most biomass was considerably enriched in P and that with the least biomass was P‐poor, one beetle species that was P‐rich was also small possibly due to limitation by an element other than P. 5. Our results indicate that fungi are important to a broader range of bark beetles than previously recognised. Additional research is needed to describe how these various symbioses influence forest ecosystems via differential effects of fungi on host beetle fitness.

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“…panded from southern British Columbia across the Rocky Mountains into the lowlands of Alberta and has continued north and east towards the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan, respectively (Cullingham et al 2011;Dhar et al 2016;Cooke and Carroll 2017). This progression was well publicized as it resulted in the loss of over 17 million hectares of lodgepole pine forest in Canada (Walton 2012;Corbett et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and genetic structure of the lodgepole × jack pine hybrid zone

et al. 2019

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In north-central Alberta, lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. var. latifolia) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.) form a mosaic hybrid zone, the spatial extent of which remains poorly defined. We sought to refine the genetic and geographic distribution of this hybrid zone in western North America to provide information important in predicting future risk of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) outbreaks. We used 29 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers to discriminate lodgepole pine, jack pine, and their hybrids. We compared and contrasted spatial patterns of hybridization in northern and southern forest zones based on the colonization history of the two species. We found that patterns of introgression were more similar between the zones than expected by chance, but there were significant differences between these regions at specific loci. Using logistic regression, we created a robust predictive model to distinguish among lodgepole pine, jack pine, and their hybrids using a combination of geographic and environmental predictors. Using model selection based on Akaike information criterion, we found that location, elevation, and moisture are important predictors for species class. Quantification of the genetic differences between these two regions, combined with an accurate model for predicting the spatial distribution of lodgepole pine, jack pine, and their hybrids, provides essential information for continued effective management of forest resources.

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Aftermath of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia: Stand Dynamics, Management Response and Ecosystem Resilience

Cited by 56 publications

References 105 publications

Effects of cover soil stockpiling on plant community development following reclamation of oil sands sites in Alberta

Effects of cover soil stockpiling on plant community development following reclamation of oil sands sites in Alberta

Mutualism is not restricted to tree‐killing bark beetles and fungi: the ecological stoichiometry of secondary bark beetles, fungi, and a scavenger

Spatial and genetic structure of the lodgepole × jack pine hybrid zone

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