Welcome to our project website
This website was
created as part of a project in the course Advanced Issues in Geographical
Information Science (GEOB370) at the University of British Columbia, autumn 2010.
The course homepage can be accessed here.
Introduction
The infestation of the
mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) (MPB)
is an
increasing problem and a major disturbance in forests of British
Columbia (BC).
Historically there have been four main events since the early 1900s, a
time when humans
started to interfere with the natural forest processes, primarily
wildfires (kilde).
The MPB attacks several kinds of pine trees found in the forests of BC,
primarily
Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Douglas), as
well as some Ponderosa Pine (Pinus Ponderosae Lawson)
(Logan & Powell, 2001).
The pine trees are only susceptible to the beetle when they are between 80-160 years old. Thus, in a natural BC environment where wildfires burn down the forest stand on average every 60 years, the infested part of the susceptible pine stand will vary between 17-25 %. At present the infested part of the susceptible stand is as high as 55 % (Taylor & Carrol, 2003: 41).
This is partly due to human effort to suppress wildfires during the last century (as mentioned above), but new studies show that the rate of increase of MPB-infestation was significantly higher than the increase in susceptible pine trees (Taylor and Carrol, 2003). This suggests that other factors are influencing the distribution of the infestation.
The last 20 years, a lot of effort and resources has been invested in determining those factors controlling MPB outbreaks, particularly in the Pacific North-West region of North America. It has been suggested that climate change plays a role in the current epidemic infestation of MPB, since some components of the beetle’s seasonal life cycle are particularly responsive to the influence of climate.
Using various climatic, ecologic, and biologic parameters (Carrol et al., 2004; Logan & Powell, 2001; Taylor & Carrol, 2003) this project aims at determining the current and future areas infected by MPB.
Using Geographical Informations Systems (GIS), and correcting for the factors that control the extension of the infestation (and thereby determine the suitable habitats for the beetle in forests of BC), maps are produced showing the spatial distribution of MPB. These are used to make predictions about future spread of the insect, as well as maps showing the distribution of the suitable habitats.
The pine trees are only susceptible to the beetle when they are between 80-160 years old. Thus, in a natural BC environment where wildfires burn down the forest stand on average every 60 years, the infested part of the susceptible pine stand will vary between 17-25 %. At present the infested part of the susceptible stand is as high as 55 % (Taylor & Carrol, 2003: 41).
This is partly due to human effort to suppress wildfires during the last century (as mentioned above), but new studies show that the rate of increase of MPB-infestation was significantly higher than the increase in susceptible pine trees (Taylor and Carrol, 2003). This suggests that other factors are influencing the distribution of the infestation.
The last 20 years, a lot of effort and resources has been invested in determining those factors controlling MPB outbreaks, particularly in the Pacific North-West region of North America. It has been suggested that climate change plays a role in the current epidemic infestation of MPB, since some components of the beetle’s seasonal life cycle are particularly responsive to the influence of climate.
Using various climatic, ecologic, and biologic parameters (Carrol et al., 2004; Logan & Powell, 2001; Taylor & Carrol, 2003) this project aims at determining the current and future areas infected by MPB.
Using Geographical Informations Systems (GIS), and correcting for the factors that control the extension of the infestation (and thereby determine the suitable habitats for the beetle in forests of BC), maps are produced showing the spatial distribution of MPB. These are used to make predictions about future spread of the insect, as well as maps showing the distribution of the suitable habitats.