Abstract
Spruce beetle outbreaks have been reported in the Rocky Mountains of western North America since the late 1800s. In their classic paper, Spruce Beetle in the Rockies, Schmid and Frye reviewed the literature that emerged from the extensive outbreaks in Colorado in the 1940s. A new wave of outbreaks has affected Rocky Mountain subalpine spruce-fir forests beginning in the mid-1980s and continuing to the present. These outbreaks have spurred another surge of basic and applied research in the biology, ecology and management of spruce and spruce beetle populations. This paper is a review of literature on spruce beetle focusing on work published since the late 1970s and is intended as an addendum to Spruce Beetle in the Rockies.
Highlights
The fundamental research on the biology, ecology and management of spruce beetle, Dendroctonus rufipennis Kirby (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae), in the central Rocky Mountains was conducted in Colorado following an extensive outbreak on the White River Plateau in the 1940s
Little gene flow has occurred between the Rocky Mountain group and the two northern groups subsequent to their initial divergence, the results of this study provided evidence that secondary contact between overlapping Rocky Mountain and northern populations in the Pacific Northwest has resulted in some gene exchange and a consequent reconnection of these two groups [37]
Spruce Beetle in the Rockies is a comprehensive treatise on the biology, ecology and management of spruce beetle reflecting the knowledge and understanding as it existed in the late 1970s
Summary
The fundamental research on the biology, ecology and management of spruce beetle, Dendroctonus rufipennis Kirby (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae), in the central Rocky Mountains was conducted in Colorado following an extensive outbreak on the White River Plateau in the 1940s. Forests 2014, 5 paper, Spruce Beetle in the Rockies, much of which is relevant and widely accepted by resource managers today. Just over 500,000 ha of spruce forests have been affected in Colorado and Wyoming since 1996 [5]. These outbreaks have precipitated a surge in new basic and applied research aimed at clarifying our understanding and/or to fill knowledge gaps. The unprecedented scale of the current outbreaks suggests that warming temperatures attributed to climate change and the region-wide susceptibility of spruce in the spruce-fir zone have had a significant impact on outbreak occurrence [7,8,9]
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