Lodgepole pine forest age class dynamics and susceptibility to mountain pine beetle attack

Abstract

Because mountain pine beetle attack mature pine stands, an understanding of forest age class dynamics is important to managing forests within the distribution of the beetle. The assumed theoretical negative exponential forest age distribution provides an estimate when ecosystem dynamics are in equilibrium. This study investigates the dynamics of forest age distribution for non-equilibrium ecosystem dynamics, which result primarily from large and irregular stand-replacement fire disturbances that alter the forest age distribution. A model experiment using the SEM-LAND model on a 1 million ha lodgepole pine forest landscape was conducted to estimate how the proportion of susceptible area could be influenced by different fire regimes. The results of the simulation suggest that the temporal dynamics of the area susceptible to mountain pine beetle attack are complex and depend on the fire history of the study area, if the area is experiencing large and irregular stand-replacement fires. The age range of the lodgepole pine forest stands susceptible to mountain pine beetle attack might significantly affect the estimate of the area susceptible to attack.