Pining for a beetle genome
The sequencing and assembly of the genome of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, is published online this week in Genome Biology. The species is native to North America, where it is...
View ArticleResearchers help unlock pine beetle's Pandora's box
(Phys.org) —Twenty researchers—more than half of them Simon Fraser University graduates and/or faculty—could become eastern Canada's knights in shining white lab coats. A paper detailing their newly...
View ArticleBeetle-kill trees pose increasing risk to recreationists, landowners
(Phys.org) —Those living in or visiting the mountains of northern Colorado this summer should be aware that dead lodgepole pines in beetle-kill areas are now falling en masse, based on observations...
View ArticleImage: Gold Pan Complex Fire
Lightning ignited the Gold Pan Complex Fire on July 16, 2013, in the River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho. As of August 9, the fire had burned 17,103 acres of mixed conifer forest. Many of the burned...
View ArticleSpread of crop pests threatens global food security as Earth warms
A new study has revealed that global warming is resulting in the spread of crop pests towards the North and South Poles at a rate of nearly 3 km a year. The study, published in the journal Nature...
View ArticleEconomic assessment of mountain pine beetle timber salvage
A recently published study by U.S. Forest Service researchers evaluates potential revenues from harvesting standing timber killed by mountain pine beetle in the western United States. The study shows...
View ArticleBeetle bait could help save Alberta pine forests
University of Alberta researchers are closing in on developing an effective bait to get ahead of the destructive spread of mountain pine beetle, which is now killing not only lodgepole pine forests,...
View ArticleSlippery bark protects trees from pine beetle attack, study finds
Trees with smoother bark are better at repelling attacks by mountain pine beetles, which have difficulty gripping the slippery surface, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.
View ArticleBark beetles change Rocky Mountain stream flows, affect water quality
On Earth Week—and in fact, every week now—trees in mountains across the western United States are dying, thanks to an infestation of bark beetles that reproduce in the trees' inner bark.
View ArticleGetting at the root of the mountain pine beetle's rapid habitat expansion and...
The mountain pine beetle has wreaked havoc in North America, across forests from the American Southwest to British Columbia and Alberta, with the potential to spread all the way to the Atlantic coast....
View ArticleFossil palm beetles 'hindcast' 50-million-year-old winters
(Phys.org) —Fifty-million-year-old fossil beetles that fed only on palm seeds are giving Simon Fraser University biologists Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes new information about ancient climates.
View ArticleStudy looks at tree harvesting as a means to stem beetle spread
Climate change has been linked to the recent surge in natural disturbances, such as storms, wildfires, and insect outbreaks. That's led scientists to look at preemptive measures to mitigate the damage.
View ArticleResearchers find bubonic plague fragments on NY subway
It is universally acknowledged that the New York subway is grubby. What may come as a shock is that it contains DNA fragments linked to anthrax and bubonic plague.
View ArticleScientist uses fungus to destroy bark beetles
As Arizona and other western states face ongoing drought conditions, the region's pine forests are becoming more vulnerable to bark beetles, which attack and kill stressed trees, increasing wildfire...
View ArticleSatellites give scientists unprecedented views of insect outbreaks in forests
Scientists for the first time have simultaneously compared widespread impacts from two of the most common forest insects in the West – mountain pine beetle and western spruce budworm – an advance that...
View ArticleMild winters not fueling all pine beetle outbreaks in western United States
Warming winters have allowed mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the coldest areas of the western United States, but milder winters can't be blamed for the full extent of recent outbreaks in the region,...
View ArticleNew mesoamerican pine beetle described
A newly-discovered species of tree-killing bark beetle, Dendroctonus mesoamericanus Armendáriz-Toledano and Sullivan, has been described in a paper published online in the Annals of the Entomological...
View ArticleYoung pine trees face new peril from mountain pine beetle
New research from the University of Alberta's Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences shows that pine beetle attacks not only lead to the death of adult trees, but can also leave the...
View ArticleThe devastating spread of the mountain pine beetle
When the mountain pine beetle began blazing a path across forests in British Columbia and Alberta, nobody could have imagined the extent of the damage to come. But as the insect devastated pine forests...
View ArticleTree killers, yes, fire starters, no: Mountain pine beetles get a bad rap,...
Mountain pine beetles get a bad rap, and understandably so. The grain-of-rice-sized insects are responsible for killing pine trees over tens of millions of acres in the Western U.S. and Canada over the...
View ArticleWestern forests decimated by pine beetles not more likely to burn
Western U.S. forests killed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic are no more at risk to burn than healthy Western forests, according to new findings by the University of Colorado Boulder that fly in...
View ArticleWhen trees die, water slows
Mountain pine beetle populations have exploded over the past decade due to warmer temperatures and drier summers, and these insects have infected and killed thousands of acres of western pine forests....
View ArticleThriving B.C. forests outpace pine-beetle CO2 losses by 2020
In a rare bit of good climate change news, scientists have found that trees are growing faster in British Columbia due to global warming, and this is starting to counter the carbon-loss impacts of the...
View ArticleThrive or fail: Examining forest resilience in the face of fires
In 1988, fires consumed more than a million acres of Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding lands. But for the past three decades, Yellowstone's forests—resilient ecosystems composed of species...
View ArticleVariable tree growth after fire protects forests from future bark beetle...
Do severe wildfires make forests in the western United States more susceptible to future bark beetle outbreaks?
View ArticleResearcher says management of pine beetle not working
A method to control the spread of mountain pine beetles—pheromone baiting—may actually help the pest's population increase, UBC research shows.
View ArticleColorado's 834 million dead trees threaten to worsen fires (Update)
Colorado's beetle-infested forests are peppered with an estimated 834 million standing dead trees that threaten to worsen wildfires and degrade vital water supplies that flow from mountains, officials...
View ArticleResearchers find more efficient way to make oil from dead trees
The mountain pine beetle has destroyed more than 40 million acres of forest in the western United States. That amounts to an area the size of Washington state that is strewn with conifers left for dead.
View ArticleMeasuring the impact of a changing climate on threatened Yellowstone grizzly...
Climate change is altering the environment in Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding region and scientists at the University of California San Diego and Unity College are studying its impacts on...
View ArticleSlow-growing ponderosas survive mountain pine beetle outbreaks
Slow-growing ponderosa pines may have a better chance of surviving mountain pine beetle outbreaks in western Montana as climate change increases the frequency of drought and insect pests, according to...
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