Assessment of whitebark pine mortality in the mountain

areas of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the

associated ecological implications

W. W. Macfarlane, J. A. Logan and W.R. Kern

The Greater Yellowstone
Ecosystem (GYE)
Mountain pine beetle is a native insect

Photo – Jeff Foote

Their strength lies in their numbers
and their jaws
 A Climate Change Issue
©Jeff Hicke 2005

• Winters are becoming mild enough that even adult beetles, a freeze
intolerant stage, are surviving => Spring re-emergence of parent adults.

•Brood produced by re-emerged adults may experience enough thermal

energy to complete the life cycle within the same year of attack.
© Jesse A. Logan 2009
• Due to reduced chemical defenses (vs. lodgepole pine), these surviving 1999
beetles, at even relatively low densities, are able to kill whitebark pine
trees.

•The combination of a warming climate and the vulnerability of whitebark

pine to attacking beetles has resulted in a shift from non-overlapping,
semivoltine (life cycle requiring two years to complete) generations to
overlapping, bi-modal, univoltine (life cycle completed in a single year).

•Resulting in unprecedented levels of outbreaks both in intensity and

spatial distribution (i.e., high-elevation systems).
EcoFlight 2007

Resulting in an alarming level of mortality in previously

inhospitable high elevation whitebark pine forests
 Research Response
2009 2009
•We developed and used an aerial
survey method to inventory
mountain pine beetle-related
mortality in whitebark pine, across
the entire GYE.

Landscape Assessment System (LAS)

A collaboration between USDA

Forest Service, GYCC Whitebark
Subcommittee , Geo-Graphics
and NRDC.
 Flight height: 300-600 m
LAS Aerial Survey Method above ground elevation
A tool for mapping the extent and intensity of MPB-related
mortality in WBP

GYE Study Area and 2009 LAS Flightlines:

•Flightlines consisted of 8,673 km and

were parallel with a fixed interval of
approximately 8 km apart (4 km on
each side of the plane).

•Flightlines run parallel and along side

mountain ridges instead of over the
crest to ensure higher quality oblique
photos.

•A total of 4,653 photos in 2,595

small catchments were captured
O -No unusual mountain pine beetle-caused 2 -Multiple spots of red and gray trees
mortality (refers to landscapes that may contain the 1 -Occasional spots of on the landscape
occasional red tree but there is no evidence of mortality red trees on the landscape
expanding to neighboring trees)

LAS Mountain Pine Beetle-related Mortality Categories

3 –Coalescing spots of red and gray 4– “Sea -of -Red” where approximately 95% + 5-6 -Post outbreak forest mortality
trees across the landscape. of the visible forest is dead ratings (gray forest)
Small Catchment
Mortality Map
© Jeff Henry, July 23, 1988
© Dunraven Pass - Kathy Peterson; Sept. 1988

© Jim Peaco, 1988

Photo by JOHN McCOLGAN/BLM Alaska Fire Service

 Serious ecological consequences are
already in motion
(1) Reproductive strategies of whitebark – asymmetric
mutualism
Shawn T. MCKinney, Carl E. Fiedler, AND Diana F. Tomback. 2009.
Invasive pathogen threatens bird–pine mutualism: implications for sustaining a
high-elevation ecosystem. Ecol. Appl. 19: 597-607.
(2) Size and scale of disturbance event
(3) Lack of co-evolved history with whitebark
Chemical defenses – Raffa, Bentz, Six & Students
fungal associates –Six & Bentz & their Students
(4) Distribution of whitebark/lodgepole forest in the GYE
(5) Synergism with WPBR
Six, D. L., and J. Adams. 2006. White pine blister rust severity and selection of
individual whitebark pine by the mountain pine beetle. J. Entomol. Sci. 47: 345-
353.
(6)Serious questions of ecosystem resiliency (See poster)
Fire – Landscape Spatial Pattern
 2010-11 Research
Main goal: assess ecological
implications using wildlife
responses to ongoing
whitebark mortality

•At what level of

whitebark mortality does
a forest stop performing
certain ecological
functions?

•This will help managers

focus protection and
restoration efforts in
areas most likely to
maintain/ regain
ecological function
Acknowledgments: USDA Forest Service, Natural Resources Defense Council