Scientists for the first time have simultaneously compared widespread impacts from two of the most common forest insects in the West \u2013 mountain pine beetle and western spruce budworm \u2013 an advance that could lead to more effective management policies.<\/p>\n
By combining data from satellites, airplanes and ground-based crews, the researchers have shown in unprecedented detail how insects affect Western forests over decades.<\/p>\n
In the past, forest managers relied on airplane surveys to evaluate insect damage over broad areas. However, satellites can reveal patterns at a much finer scale. By combining both types of data, scientists are refining estimates of damage and showing how they may relate to other factors that determine forest structure and composition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time anyone has compared the impacts from these two insects in consistent units of change going all the way back to 1970,\u201d said Garrett Meigs, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Vermont. Meigs conducted his analysis while he was a Ph.D. student in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. He worked with Robert Kennedy, an expert in landscape analysis and an assistant professor in OSU\u2019s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.<\/p>\n
They published their findings in this week\u2019s issue of Forest Ecology and Management<\/em>, a professional journal.<\/p>\n Outbreaks of both insects occur in cycles and can affect millions of acres of forest lands from year to year. The mountain pine beetle has killed lodgepole pine trees across much of western Canada and the United States in recent decades. Western spruce budworm defoliates \u2013 but does not normally kill \u2013 Douglas-fir, spruce and true firs. However, repeated years of western spruce budworm attack can weaken trees and make them vulnerable to other stresses, which may eventually kill them.<\/p>\n Forest image credit Oregon State University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists for the first time have simultaneously compared widespread impacts from two of the most common forest insects in the West \u2013 mountain pine beetle and western spruce budworm \u2013 an advance that could lead to more effective management policies. By combining data from satellites, airplanes and ground-based crews, the researchers have shown in unprecedented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/55"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecologicalinfo.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}