Fire mitigates bark beetle outbreaks in serotinous forests.

ABSTRACT: Bark beetle outbreaks and forest fires have imposed severe ecological damage and caused billions of dollars in lost resources in recent decades. The impact of such combined disturbances is projected to become more severe, especially as climate change takes its toll on forest ecosystems in the coming years. Here, we investigate the impact of multiple disturbances in a demographically heterogeneous tree population, using an age-structured difference equation model of bark beetle outbreaks and forest fires. We identify two dynamical regimes for beetle and fire dynamics. The model predicts that fire helps dampen beetle outbreaks not only by removing host trees but also by altering the demographic structure of forest stands. We show that a stand thinning protocol, which reduces the population s

SUBMITTER: Jentsch PC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8683088 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature