Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Chair Ken Raffa opened the meeting at 9:00 am on Sat. Oct. 22, 2005. Introductions. Ken Raffa provided a description of multi-state projects; purpose is to communicate and facilitate collaborative research. The difference between multi-state projects vs. coordinating committee is discussed; coordinating committees dont necessarily have to do research. Multi-state research projects must integrate research among members. Dave Wood provided a historical perspective: This project has been going for about 30 years (1970s). It was started by Ron Stark and Fields Cobb and has been renewed every four years since then. We are unique because we have both pathologists and entomologists and cover a large geographic scale. We are supposed to get Hatch funds from experiment stations to come to the annual meeting. However, most dont get any money for travel or anything. Have to negotiate and many cannot get funding. This issue was brought up by Bill Jacobi. Enrico Bonello talked about local arrangements. Registration fee, etc. Barbara Bentz led a short discussion of the renewal process and what is needed for annual reports. Ken Raffa will send an email to everyone (with attachment from website, participant list) and make sure everybody gets on as a participant. Need to go through experiment station director to get on participant list through submission of Appendix E. Everyone needs to verify that they are on the participant list. Members are asked to submit to Ken Raffa any messages going to experiment station directors regarding this. Ken will include URL for NIMSS in email. Rick Meyer says there is a manual for the western region that details what you need to do to be a participant. Everyone can register as a guest in MIMSS to look at participant list. Ken Raffa will also include in email the contact information for administrative assistant to help with technical problems with NIMSS (Nicole Nelson at Univ. of Wisconsin?). Rick Meyer will send Barbara Bentz the name of the appropriate contact person. Fred Baker mentioned that he is still maintaining a separate web site at Utah State. Rick Meyer provided a CSREES update: President Bushs budget included a cut of Hatch funds by 50% in 2005, with projected zeroing out of Hatch funds by 2006. This was not accepted and both House and Senate restored Hatch funding to present level. USDA/NRI RFA was just released last week. The release was late because CSREES could not release RFAs for programs that are not in the presidents budget. Most integrated programs have been delayed because they were zeroed out in presidents budget. 2007 Farm bill is in the works. May result in some funding for research, but not much. Research is a small part of the bill; very few comments about research are being brought up, we need to make sure that constituents say that research is important; farm forum questions can be done online. We should have our constituents do this (go to the USDA homepage, farm bill forums). We need to make sure research gets represented. How we state our impact statements in the annual report is very important. Rick went through a Powerpoint presentation on what the impact statements need to say and convey. They should include teaching and extension and the mentoring of graduate students who are being trained to carryon the research in the future. Components of impact statements should be: 1. issue 2. actions: what have you done 3. impact or benefits 4. who was responsible for doing it 5. how do you contact the people who are doing it. If doing basic research, the impact is a change in the knowledge base of our discipline allowing research to go further. What is the annual impact of what we have done given what we said we were going to do. Integrated impact statements. Ken Raffa recommended that from now on we write the impact statements during the meetings; that way they will be integrated. Diana Six suggested that to do this we are going to need a longer meeting in the future. Everyone could come to the meeting with CRIS reports and impact statements for that and begin with those to form group impact statements. Ken Raffa said we should form a writing committee who will be in charge of getting the impact statement written. As a whole, the group thought that it would be good to get an administrative advisor who is more involved, and cares more about what we are about. It was suggested that we might want to write a letter to the appropriate person, recognizing that our current AA (Dr. Thawley) is not responsive, and ask for a replacement. This request should be addressed to Mike Harrington. Rick Meyer said he will talk with Mike and let him know that a letter will be forthcoming from this committee. Fred Baker suggested that Rasmussen at USU might be interested in being our advisor. Therefore, we wont send the letter, instead do it through Fred talking with Rasmussen and Rick talking to Harrington. Ron Pardini might be interested in being our advisor also and he would be our first choice. We should check out the NIMSS website about the checklist for administrator advisors and what they need to do be prepared for. These are things that we need to be thinking of. Rick Meyer stated that we need to submit 2-3 pages on minutes, one whole impact statement or one impact statement for each objective; each state needs to write a report by objective. We should use Appendix Ds format (which can be found on WAAESD website) for annual report. Appendix E is also there for adding new participants. We need a project report for the time period Oct. 2004 through Sept. 2005. Baker, Bonello, Jacobi, and Raffa volunteered to meet at 7:00 AM to start the impact statement. Progress reports should be sent to Enrico Bonello who will upload them to NIMSS within 60 days of this meeting. Diana Six suggested we put together a book with multi authored chapters that are broad. A suggested publisher is Island Press. It would be affordable and could perhaps be used as a text book. Francois Lieutiers book Bark and Woodborring Beetles in Live Trees is basically the European version. Our book would be a synthesis for North American wood and bark beetles and fungal interactions, that would focus on our objectives for W1187. What should be in this book? Chemical ecology? Not much in this group right now. David Wood indicated that not much has been done in the past 10 yrs or so on silviculture and fungal-interactions. Need an outline to see where people might fit. Diana will send out an outline for a book and get comments back from the group. She will organize it by our objectives. The objective is to update readers on current state of knowledge and address some old dogmas. Fred Baker wondered if he should keep up the website. Ken Raffa responded affirmatively; it is good to maintain it for the historical aspect and treat it as an archive. Ken Raffa made an announcement about the Bark Beetle Genetics meeting in Asheville in May 2006. Administrative advisor Thawley showed up unannounced at 12:30 PM and stayed for approximately 2 hours. He reminded the group that minutes of the meeting and annual reports must be submitted within 60 days of the meeting. No meeting means no report or minutes. New rules are that without a report one would not be authorized to have a meeting the following year. This meeting will result in our 2005 minutes and 2005 reports. We may not need a 2004 report, when we did not have a meeting. Thawley will let Enrico Bonello know if we really need the 2004 report since we were renewed that year. Thawley reiterated that to get on the members list, the experiment station director needs to fill out an Appendix E for the member and once that is filled out the director is obliged to pay for travel to the meeting. Only those with Ag. Experiment Station appointments can get money to pay for the travel to the meeting. Thawley reported he has only been our advisor for six months. STATE REPORTS: see Additional Documents in project's homepage. Meeting adjourned at 1:00 PM on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005.

Objective 1: Characterize the role of biotic and abiotic factors in predisposing trees to bark beetle attack and subsequent mortality. Prescribed burning increases tree mortality and the abundance of tree-killing beetles. One of the studies under the national Fire-Fire Surrogate program is located in the Blodgett Research Station in California. Four treatments are: (1) no treatment, (2) thin and masticate only, (3) burn only, and (4) thin and burn. These treatments were conducted in 2002-2005. We have monitored landing rates of beetles on sticky traps that flight intercept traps that are randomly located throughout the treated and control areas. Analyses are currently underway to determine the effect of these treatments on subcortical insect populations, disease incidence, and subsequent tree mortality. External application of methyl jasmonate, a natural product involved in plant response to enemies, increases tree defenses against bark beetle attack and colonization and may have application in tree protection. We have been investigating if external application of methyl jasmonate, a well-known inducer of plant defense responses, affects tree resistance to attack by Ips typographus (the spruce bark beetle) by altering biochemistry and anatomy of mature Picea abies (Norway spruce) trees in Norway. Bark sections of P. abies treated with methyl jasmonate had significantly less I. typographus colonization than bark sections in the controls and exhibited shorter parental galleries and fewer eggs deposited. The numbers of beetles that emerged and mean dry weight per beetle were also significantly lower in methyl jasmonate-treated bark. In addition, fewer beetles were attracted to conspecifics tunneling in methyl jasmonate-treated bark. Stem sections of P. abies treated with methyl jasmonate had an increased number of traumatic resin ducts and a higher concentration of terpenes than untreated sections, whereas the concentration of soluble phenolics did not differ between treatments. The increased amount of terpenoid resin present in methyl jasmonate-treated bark could be directly responsible for the observed decrease in I. typographus colonization and reproduction. In a separate study, we are trying to determine if more aggressive bark beetle species, e.g., Ips typographus, exhibit different responses to various ratios of monoterpenes to pheromones (0, 50:1, 500:1, 1000:1, 5000:1, blank) compared to those by less aggressive bark beetle species, e.g., Ips pini. Field experiments were conducted in a monoclonal stand of Norway spruce in Norway in 2004 and 2005. Responses by I .typographus to pheromones were synergized by the ratios from 50:1 to 500:1. In contrast, _-pinene released at 5000:1 reduced the attraction of male and female I. typographus to the pheromone by 1.73 and 1.16 times, respectively. We continued our work on the elucidation of the mechanisms of induction of systemic resistance (systemic induced resistance  SIR) in pine. Two major avenues of research were pursued: 1) biochemical and molecular basis of SIR against pathogens, including studies of phenolic, terpenoid, and protein-based defenses; and 2) effects of soil fertility on susceptibility to pathogen and insect attack in pine, and the host-mediated cross effects between pathogens and insects. In general, fungal infection of pine makes the host more resistant to subsequent pathogen and insect attack (SIR). We discovered that pathways leading to phenolic accumulation (including soluble phenolics and lignin), resin synthesis, and expression of stress-related proteins are all affected systemically by fungal infection. We do not yet know which pathways affect insect performance on induced plants. We are conducting a long-term project on declining red pine stands in Wisconsin, testing the roles of root colonizing beetles and Leptographium associates in predisposing trees to Ips. Current emphases are on spatial analysis, predator-prey interactions with particular emphasis on dispersal, and relationships of tree defense physiology and chemistry to root infection. We are examining the impact of tree fertilization on nitrogen assimilation from tree to fungus to insect in the lodgepole pine  mountain pine beetle system. In cooperation with USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Management, the Rocky Mt Research Station and other regional cooperators, we modeled the potential risk of white pine blister rust on limber and bristle cone pines in the Central Rocky Mountains. As part of this study we collected the occurrence of mountain pine beetle in relation to blister rust. We did not find enough bark beetle infested trees in our plots to make any strong analysis but it appeared in endemic levels of beetles that neither dwarf mistletoe or blister rust infested trees were attacked over non-infested trees by mountain pine beetles. A study is looking at stand structure, fuel loadings and relationships among mountain pine beetle and dwarf mistletoe in ponderosa pine along the Colorado Front Range. Dendroctonus ponderosae populations collected from latitudinally dispersed geographic locations were found to differ in important life history traits including development time and the temperature threshold for successful pupation. Common garden experiments suggest that the traits are heritable, and that the local environment is the most important driver. We are investigating the effect of fire injury on bark beetle brood production. Time following the fire appears to significantly affect brood production. Objective 2: Characterize the diversity and interactions among tree hosts, bark beetles, their natural enemies and associated fungi. We have quantified the efficiency of 4 beetle species in carrying the exotic pitch canker pathogen, which may help to predict its range expansion. We have compared the spore load on four bark beetle species that have been shown to carry the pitch canker pathogen in nature: Ips paraconfusus, I. mexicanus, Pityophthorus setosus, P. carmeli. The goal of this study is to determine the vector efficiency of a few of the many bark beetle species that carry propagules of the pitch canker pathogen in nature. We artificially contaminated beetles of these species with the naturally occurring spore load and 10 times higher than the natural spore load. These beetles were caged on branches on living trees in the native forest. We are currently waiting the results of this experiment. Studies are analyzing the gut bacteria of three bark beetles, the southern pine beetle, pine engraver, and spruce beetle, and three wood borers, Asian long-horned beetle, linden borer, and emerald ash borer. Methods are by 16S rDNA and culturing. Functional studies are emphasizing evaluation of cellulotic, nitrogen fixing, and detoxifying roles of bacteria. We are investigating interactions among Leptographium, spruce beetle, bacterial associates of spruce beetle, and spruce chemistry. Genetic analyses of spruce beetle based on mDNA and microsatellites are underway in collaboration with Cornell University. Lodgepole pines in stands experiencing various levels of mountain pine beetle pressure are being assayed for tree defense characters, to test whether trees of different resistance levels are selected during endemic vs. eruptive conditions. Analyses include constitutive chemistry, induced chemistry, and resin flow. Trees include absence or presence of putatively predisposing insects and competitors. Although no significant differences were observed in the ergosterol content of fungi associated with Dendroctonus ponderosae and D. rufipennis, recent results suggest that these fungi make large quantities available to their beetle hosts. Sterols are a required nutrient for insects, and phloem not infested by bark beetles contained 0 to trace levels. These results suggest an additional nutritional role of associated fungi in bark beetle population dynamics. In a laboratory study, Dendroctonus rufipennis reared with its major fungal associate, Leptographium abietinum, had significantly more whole body lipids than sterilized beetles. These results suggest a nutritional benefit to these beetles from their fungal associates. 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. A review was published on the fungal relationships of mycophagous bark beetles. Many of the fungi fed upon by bark beetles (Entomocorticium spp., Phlebiopsis gigantea, Ophiostoma spp. and Leptographium spp.) show specific adaptations that make them more easily consumed by bark beetles. Episodic mortality of red spruce by spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) was shown to be critical to the long-term dynamics of the montane spruce-fir ecosystem in the New England. We are participating in a collaborative project on the eruptive dynamics and spatial spread of the mountain pine beetle, as influenced by land use patterns and climate. We are examining the use of multi-spectral and hyper-spectral data for use in detecting and delineating outbreaks of western pine beetle and mountain pine beetle (D. ponderosae) in various host species. We have initiated an assessment of pinyon Ips on insect community diversity at the northernmost extent of the range of single-leaf pinyon in North America. Pheromone-baited funnel traps, which are routinely used to monitor bark beetle populations, were found to disproportionately sample D. ponderosae populations through time suggesting that they caution should be taken in interpretations relating to phenology. Pheromone trap catches were correlated with surrounding tree mortality for both D. ponderosae and D. rufipennis. Results suggest that captures in the range of 680-842 spruce beetles during a season from a single funnel trap represent a threshold between endemic (<10 mass-attacked stems/10 ha) and epidemic conditions (> 50 mass attacked stems/10 ha). We are further investigating how climate change might influence future patterns in bark beetle-caused tree mortality. Heritibality and genetic variation (as determined in laboratory studies) are being incorporated into our existing phenology model for D. ponderosae. Temperatures predicted from GCC models are then used to drive the model, providing insight into those parts of this insect distribution where changes in climate will both positively and negatively affect population dynamics. We have developed a model to predict the probability of Pseudotsugae menziesii mortality following wildfire, including mortality due to preferential attack by the Douglas-fir beetle Dendroctonus pseudotsugae. High dose verbenone pouches were found to significantly reduce the number of trees attacked and killed by Dendroctonus ponderosae in small lodgepole and whitebark pine stands. Analysis at several scales suggest that remotely sensed imagery from the Landsat ETM satellite can be used to estimate the location and quantity of D. ponderosae  killed lodgepole pine. Higher resolution imagery, such as IKONOS and Quickbird, will be required to identify small patches of beetle-killed trees.

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