Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T17:55:36.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Saproxylic beetle (Coleoptera) diversity in subalpine whitebark pine and lodgepole pine (Pinaceae) trees killed by mountain pine beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2016

Evan D. Esch ,
John R. Spence  and
David W. Langor
Evan D. Esch*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Department of Renewable Resources, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada
John R. Spence
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Department of Renewable Resources, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada
David W. Langor
Affiliation:
Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Edmonton, Alberta, T6H 3S5, Canada
*
1Corresponding author (e-mail: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis Engelmann (Pinaceae), a foundational species of North American subalpine ecosystems, is endangered across its range and continued decline is inevitable. Little is known about the invertebrate fauna associated with this species which, if specific to whitebark pine, may also be threatened or endangered. We compared the composition of saproxylic beetle assemblages associated with whitebark pine and co-occurring lodgepole pine, Pinus contorta latifolia (Engelmann) Critchfield (Pinaceae), recently killed by mountain pine beetle (MPB), Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), in subalpine forests in Alberta, Canada. Redundancy and rarefaction analyses revealed that beetle assemblage composition was influenced by snag class (i.e., time since death) but differed little among the two pine species within snag classes. However, a subset of the assemblage known to be associated with the MPB differed significantly in composition between the two pines. No common species were exclusively associated with whitebark pines; however, seven species were rarely collected only on whitebark pine. With the possible exception of these rare species, felling and burning infested whitebark pines to control the MPB will not likely endanger saproxylic beetles associated with this tree.

Type
Biodiversity & Evolution
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 148 , Supplement 5 , October 2016 , pp. 556 - 568
Copyright
© Entomological Society of Canada 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Subject editor: Rob Johns

References

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development and Alberta Conservation Association. 2007. Status of the limber pine (Pinus flexis) in Alberta. Alberta Wildlife Status Report, 62: 1–30.Google Scholar
Arno, S.F. and Hoff, R.J. 1989. Silvics of whitebark pine. United States Forest Service General Technical Report, INT-253: 1–11.Google Scholar
Bartos, D.L. and Gibson, K.E. 1990. Insects of whitebark pine with special emphasis on mountain pine beetle. In Proceedings-symposium on whitebark pine ecosystems: ecology and management of a high-mountain resource, Bozeman, Montana 29–31 March 1989. Compiled by W.C. Schmidt and K.J. McDonald. United States Forest Service General Technical Report, INT-270: 171–179.Google Scholar
Bousquet, Y., Bouchard, P., Davies, A.E., and Sikes, D.S. 2013. Checklist of beetles (Coleoptera) of Canada and Alaska, 2nd edition. Pensoft, Sofia, Bulgaria.Google Scholar
Bright, D.E. 1976. The insects and arachnids of Canada part 2. The bark beetles of Canada and Alaska. Coleoptera: Scolytidae. Canadian Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Colwell, R.K. 2009. EstimateS: statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples. Version 8.2. User’s guide and application. Available from http://purl.oclc.org/estimates [accessed 5 September 2011].Google Scholar
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. 2010. COSEWIC assessment and status report on the whitebark pine Pinus albicaulis in Canada. Available from http://registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=02473155-1 [accessed 21 December 2015].Google Scholar
Dahlsten, D.L. and Stephen, F.M. 1974. Natural enemies of insects associates of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), in sugar pine. The Canadian Entomologist, 106: 1211–1217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danks, H.V. 1979. Summary of the diversity of Canadian terrestrial arthropods. In Canada and its insect fauna. Edited by H.V. Danks. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 108. Entomological Society of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Pp. 240–244.Google Scholar
de Leon, D. 1935. An annotated list of the parasites, predators, and other associated fauna of the mountain pine beetle in western white pine and lodgepole pine. The Canadian Entomologist, 66: 51–61.Google Scholar
Dufrêne, M. and Legendre, P. 1997. Species assemblages and indicator species: the need for a flexible asymmetrical approach. Ecological Monographs, 67: 345–366.Google Scholar
Ellison, A.M., Bank, M.S., Clinton, B.D., Colburn, E.C., Elliot, K., Ford, C.R., et al. 2005. Loss of foundation species: consequences for the structure and dynamics of forested ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 3: 479–486.Google Scholar
Gibson, K., Skov, K., Kegley, S., Jorgensen, C., Smith, S., and Witcosky, J. 2008. Mountain pine beetle impacts in high-elevation five-needle pines: current trends and changes. United States Forest Service, Forest Health and Forest Protection Report, 08-020: 1–32.Google Scholar
Hammond, H.E.J. 1997. Arthropod biodiversity from Populus coarse woody material in north-central Alberta: a review of taxa and collection methods. The Canadian Entomologist, 129: 1009–1033.Google Scholar
Hammond, H.E.J., Langor, D.W., and Spence, J.R. 2001. Early colonization of Populus wood by saproxylic beetles (Coleoptera). Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 31: 1175–1183.Google Scholar
Hammond, H.E.J., Langor, D.W., and Spence, J.R. 2004. Saproxylic beetles (Coleoptera) using Populus in boreal aspen stands of western Canada: spatiotemporal variation and conservation of assemblages. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 34: 1–19.Google Scholar
Howden, H.F. and Vogt, G.B. 1951. Insect communities of standing dead pine (Pinus virginiana Mill.). Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 44: 581–595.Google Scholar
Irmler, U., Heller, K., and Warning, J. 1996. Age and tree species as factors influencing the populations of insects living in dead wood (Coleoptera, Diptera: Sciaridae, Mycetophilidae). Pedobiologia, 40: 134–148.Google Scholar
Jacobs, J.M., Spence, J.R., and Langor, D.W. 2007. Influence of boreal forest succession and dead wood qualities on saproxylic beetles. Agricultural and Forest Entomology, 9: 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaila, L. 1993. A new method for collecting quantitative samples of insects associated with decaying wood or wood fungi. Entomologica Fennica, 29: 21–23.Google Scholar
Langor, D.W., Hammond, H.E.J., Spence, J.R., Jacobs, J.M., and Cobb, T.P. 2008. Saproxylic insect assemblages in Canadian forests: diversity, ecology, and conservation. The Canadian Entomologist, 140: 453–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legendre, P. and Gallagher, E.D. 2001. Ecologically meaningful transformations for ordination of species data. Oecologia, 129: 271–280.Google Scholar
Legendre, P. and Legendre, L. 1998. Numerical ecology, 2nd English edition. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Logan, J.A. and Powell, J.A. 2001. Ghost forests, global warming, and the mountain pine beetle (Coleoptera: Scolytidae). American Entomologist, 47: 160–172.Google Scholar
Oksanen, J., Blanchet, F.G., Kindt, R., Legendre, P., Minchin, P.R., O’Hara, R.B., et al. 2011. Vegan: community ecology package. R package version 2.0-0. Available from http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan [accessed 30 August 2011].Google Scholar
Price, R.A., Liston, A., and Strauss, S.H. 1998. Phlylogeny and systematics of Pinus . In Ecology and biogeography of Pinus . Edited by D.M. Richardson. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Pp. 49–68.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team. 2010. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available from: http://www.R-project.org [accessed 30 August 2010].Google Scholar
Raffa, K.F., Powell, E.N., and Townsend, P.A. 2013. Temperature-driven range expansion of an irruptive insect heightened by weakly coevolved plant defenses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 110: 2193–2198.Google Scholar
Rankin, L.J. and Borden, J.H. 1991. Competitive interactions between the mountain pine beetle and the pine engraver in lodgepole pine. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 21: 1029–1039.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, D.W. 2010. Labdsv: ordination and multivariate analysis for ecology. R package version 1.4-1. Available from http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=labdsv [accessed 30 August 2010].Google Scholar
Safranyik, L. and Carroll, A.L. 2006. The biology and epidemiology of the mountain pine beetle in lodgepole pine forest. In The mountain pine beetle a synthesis of biology, management and impacts on lodgepole pine. Edited by L. Safranyik and B. Wilson. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Center, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Pp. 3–66.Google Scholar
Safranyik, L., Carroll, A.L., Regniere, J., Langor, D.W., Riel, W.G., Shore, T.L., et al. 2010. Potential for range expansion of mountain pine beetle into the boreal forest of North America. The Canadian Entomologist, 142: 415–422.Google Scholar
Safranyik, L., Shore, T.L., Linton, D.A., and Rankin, L. 1999. Effects of induced competitive interactions with secondary bark beetle species on establishment and survival of mountain pine beetle broods in lodgepole pine. Canadian Forest Service Information Report, BC-X-384: 1–20.Google Scholar
Savely, H.E. 1939. Ecological relations of certain animals in dead pine and oak logs. Ecological Monographs, 9: 323–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siitonen, J. 2001. Forest management, coarse woody debris and saproxylic organisms: fennoscandian boreal forests as an example. Ecological Bulletins, 49: 11–41.Google Scholar
Smith, C.M., Wilson, B., Rasheed, S., Walker, R.C., Carolin, T., and Shepherd, B. 2008. Whitebark pine and white pine blister rust in the Rocky Mountains of Canada and northern Montana. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 38: 982–995.Google Scholar
Stehr, F.W. 1991. Immature insects, volume 2. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa, United States of America.Google Scholar
Stokland, J.N. 2012. Biodiversity in dead wood. The Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute and University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.Google Scholar
Thatcher, T.O. 1967. A new species of Ips from Utah, Montana, and Alberta. The Canadian Entomologist, 97: 493–496.Google Scholar
Tomback, D.F. and Achuff, P. 2010. Blister rust and western forest biodiversity: ecology, values and outlook for white pines. Forest Pathology, 40: 186–225.Google Scholar
Tomback, D.T., Arno, S.F., and Keane, R.E. 2001. The compelling case for management intervention. In Whitebark pine communities ecology and restoration. Edited by D.T. Tomback, S.F. Arno, and R.E. Keane. Island Press, Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America. Pp. 3–25.Google Scholar
Ulyshen, M.D. and Hanula, J.L. 2009. Habitat associations of saproxylic beetles in southeastern United States: a comparison of forest types, tree species and wood postures. Forest Ecology and Management, 257: 653–664.Google Scholar
Ulyshen, M.D. and Hanula, J.L. 2010. Patterns of saproxylic beetle succession in loblolly pine. Agricultural and Forest Entomology, 12: 187–194.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Q.D. and Miller, K.B. 2005a. Slime-mold beetles of the genus Agathidium Panzer in North and Central America, part I. Coleoptera: Leiodidae. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 290: 1–95.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Q.D. and Miller, K.B. 2005b. Slime-mold beetles of the genus Agathidium Panzer in North and Central America, part II. Coleoptera: Leiodidae. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 291: 1–167.Google Scholar
Wood, S.L. 1982. The bark and ambrosia beetles of North and Central America (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), a taxonomic monograph. Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs, 6: 1–1359.Google Scholar
Wu, J., Yu, X.D., and Zhou, H.Z. 2008. The saproxylic beetle assemblage associated with different host trees in southwest China. Insect Science, 15: 251–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Esch supplementary material

Appendix

Download Esch supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 146.8 KB