Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Objective 1: Characterize the role of biotic and abiotic factors in predisposing trees to bark beetle attack and subsequent mortality " Initiated a project examining tree community regeneration following mountain pine beetle and white pine blister rust infestations/infections in higher elevation whitebark pine stands. " Completed a project examining the use of systemic insecticides to manage ponderosa pine cone beetle in conifer seed orchards. " Tree mortality following severe defoliation by pine butterfly. Collaborating with Rob Flowers, Oregon Dept. of Forestry with Ari DeMarco, Graduate Student. This project is a attempting to determine if severe defoliation by pine butterfly in Central Oregon results in bark beetle mortality. " The effect of mountain pine beetle and dwarf mistletoe on canopy structure and fire behavior in Oregon lodgepole pine forests. This is a MS Thesis that Michelle Agne is working on. Although it is not directly a investigating the influence of dwarf mistletoe on bark beetles, it is determining factors associated the results of mt. pine beetle activity. " Patterns of non-structural carbon storage in western conifers. With Rick Meinzer and Dave Woodruff. " Managing Fuel Loads by Limiting Mortality Caused by Bark Beetles and Sudden Oak Death. With Rick Kelsey. Objective 2: Characterize the diversity and interactions among tree hosts, bark beetles, their natural enemies and associated fungi. Completed project on fungal species assemblages associated with Phytophthora ramorum-infected coast live oaks following bark and ambrosia beetle colonization in northern California. Objective 3: Integrate and apply the knowledge gained from objectives 1 and 2 to forest ecosystems as influenced by emerging issues such as invasive species, global climate change, changing land use patterns and multiple and conflicting societal demands " Identified the invasive Eastern Spruce Gall Adelgid as occurring in Idaho. " Examined the impact of predicted climate scenarios on the distribution of tree-killing pest insects such as the invasive Balsam Woolly Adelgid in higher elevation Idaho forests and how they may interact with bark beetle outbreaks. " Temporal dynamics of ground, surface, ladder, and crown fuels and their potential effects on fire behavior, following Dendroctonus ponderosae epidemics in the Pinus contorta zone of south-central Oregon. Joint Fire Science Program, Boise, Idaho. " We recently finished this project: Spatial and Ecological Analysis of Red Fir Decline in California Using FIA Plots. Leif Mortensen graduated with an MS. Characterized the causal mechanisms that control bark beetle epidemics at the landscape level in greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Impacts of forest biomass removal on soil quality and biodiversity. M. Coleman, S. Cook, D. Page-Dumroese, D. Lindner and M. Jurgensen. 2012-2015, $499,000. USDA-AFRI- Environmental Implications of Direct and Indirect Land Use Change. Testing systemic insecticides against multiple seed orchard pests commonly present in the intermountain west. 2010-2013, $120,000. S.P. Cook and M. Rust. Part of an NSF-Center for Advanced Forestry Systems Program. Linking insect communities with environmental parameters in the Selkirk Mountains. 2010-2013, $57,060. Cook, S.P. and J. Johnson. USDA-Forest Service, Research Joint Venture Agreement (Rocky Mountain Research Station). Whitebark pine stand conditions after mountain pine beetle outbreaks in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. C. Jorgensen, S. Kegley, J. Schwandt, S. Cook, D. Perkins, J. Hoffman, B. Steed and L. Lazarus. 2012-2014, $62,000. USDA-Forest Service, Evaluation Monitoring Program. Tree mortality following severe defoliation by pine butterfly. $51,000. 2012-2013. OR Dept. of Forestry and USFS Forest Health Protection. With ODF Rob Flowers. Archival of post-mountain pine beetle fuels and fire behavior data of south-central Oregon. $9, 997. 2012-2013. David Shaw and Travis Woolley. Joint Fire Science Program, Boise Idaho. Continued funding for Patterns of non-structural carbon storage in western conifers. $8,000. 2010-2015. David Shaw, with Rick Meinzer and David Woodruff, PNW Research Station. Comparing aboveground biomass estimates using existing allometric equations, LIDAR, and tree based physiological models. $50,478. 2012-2013. USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Western Wildlands Environmental Threats Assessment Center. With Travis Woolley, Michelle Agne, and USFS Nancy NSF Ecology. 2008. A conceptual and mechanistic approach to understanding interactions among multiple disturbance agents: compound effects of fire on resource availability to bark beetles K. Raffa, P. Townsend, E. Powell. 4 yrs. USDA NRI. 2008 How do interactions among microbial symbionts affect the host and range expansions of an eruptive forest insect?. K. F. Raffa, C. Currie, A. Adams. 4 yrs. McIntire-Stennis. 2008. Interactions among symbionts and bark beetles. K. Raffa. 4 yrs. Wisconsin Dept. Natural Resources. 2010. Biological control of Emerald Ash Borer in Wisconsin. K. Raffa. 3 yr.

Cook, S.P., F. Merickel, K. Ward & N. Havill. 2012. First report of Adelges abietis (Linneaus) (Hemiptera: Adelgidae) in Idaho. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 88: 435-436. Hoffman, C.M., P. Morgan, W. Mell, R. Parsons, E. Strand & S. Cook. 2012. Numerical simulation of crown fire hazard immediately following bark beetle-caused mortality in lodgepole pine forests. Forest Science 58: 178-188. Hoffman, C.M., P. Morgan, W. Mell, R. Parsons, E.K. Strand & S. Cook. In Press. Surface fire intensity influences simulated crown fire behavior in forests with mountain pine beetle-caused tree mortality. Forest Science Cook, S.P., B.D. Sloniker & M. Rust. In Press. Using systemically-applied insecticides for management of ponderosa pine cone beetle in pine seed orchards. Western Journal of Applied Forestry. Strong, N.A., P.T. Oester, and D.C. Shaw. 2012. Pest Scene Investigators: A Peer-Learning Effort to Improve Forest Health in Oregon. Journal of Extension 50 (2). Article Number 2IAW2. Woolley, T., D.C. Shaw, L.M. Ganio, and S. Fitzgerald. 2011. A review of logistic regression models used to predict post-fire tree mortality of western North American conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire 21:1-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF09039. Chumura, D.J., P.D. Anderson, G.T. Howe, C.A. Harrington, J.E. Halofsky, D.L. Peterson, D.C. Shaw, and B. St. Clair. 2011. Forest Responses to climate change in the northwestern United States: ecophysiological foundations for adaptive management. Forest Ecology and Management. 261: 1121-1142. Hicke, JA, CD Allen, AR Desai, MC Dietze, RJ Hall, ET Hogg, DM Kashian, D Moore, KF Raffa, RN. Sturrock, J Vogelmann. 2012. Effects of biotic disturbances on forest carbon budgets of the United States and Canada. Global Change Biology. 18:7-34. McPherson, BA, N. Erbilgin, P. Bonello, and DL Wood. 2013. Fungal species assemblages associated with Phytophthora ramorum-infected coast live oaks following bark and ambrosia beetle colonization in northern California. Forest Ecology and Management 291: 30-42. Simard, M, EN Powell, KF Raffa & MG Turner. 2012. What explains landscape patterns of bark beetle outbreaks in Greater Yellowstone? Global Ecology and Biogeography. 21: 556-557. Powell, EN, Townsend PA & KF Raffa. 2012. Wildfire provides refuge from local extinction but is an unlikely driver of outbreaks by mountain pine beetle. Ecol. Monogr. 82:69-84. Jamieson MA, Trowbridge AM., Raffa KF & RL Lindroth. 2012. Consequences of climate change for plant-insect and multitrophic interactions. Plant Physiology, Update. 160: 1719-1727.