Localized spatial and temporal attack dynamics of the mountain pine beetle in lodgepole pine. Forest Service research paper
Colonization of a host tree by the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) involves chemical communication that enables a massive aggregation of beetles on a single resource, thereby ensuring host death and subsequent beetle population survival. Beetle populations have evolved a mechanism for termination of colonization on a lodgepole pine tree at optimal beetle densities, with a concomitant switch of attacks to nearby trees. Observations of the daily spatial and temporal attack process of mountain pine beetles (nonepidemic) attacking lodgepole pine suggest that beetles switch attacks to a new host tree before the original focus tree is fully colonized, and that verbenone, an antiaggregating pheromone, may be acting within a tree rather than between trees.
- Research Organization:
- Forest Service, Ogden, UT (United States). Intermountain Research Station
- OSTI ID:
- 442352
- Report Number(s):
- PB--97-129043/XAB; FSRP/INT--494
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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