Mountain pine beetle
| Mountain pine beetle | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Adult | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Family: | Curculionidae |
| Subfamily: | Scolytinae |
| Genus: | Dendroctonus |
| Species: | D. ponderosae |
| Binomial name | |
|
Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, 1902 |
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The mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae, is a species of bark beetle native to the forests of western North America from Mexico to central British Columbia. It has a hard black exoskeleton, and measures approximately 5 mm, about the size of a grain of rice.
In western North America, the current outbreak of the mountain pine beetle and its microbial associates has destroyed wide areas of lodgepole pine forest, including more than 16 million of the 55 million hectares of forest in British Columbia. The current outbreak in the Rocky Mountain National Park began in 1996 and has caused the destruction of millions of acres of ponderosa and lodgepole pine trees. According to an annual assessment by the state's forest service, 264,000 acres of trees in Colorado were infested by the mountain pine beetle at the beginning of 2013. This was much smaller than the 1.15 million acres that were affected in 2008 because the beetle has already killed off most of the vulnerable trees (Ward).
Mountain pine beetles inhabit ponderosa, whitebark, lodgepole, Scotch, jack pine, and limber pine trees. Normally, these insects play an important role in the life of a forest, attacking old or weakened trees, and speeding development of a younger forest. However, unusually hot, dry summers and mild winters throughout the region during the last few years, along with forests filled with mature lodgepole pine, have led to an unprecedented epidemic.
It may be the largest forest insect blight ever seen in North America.Climate change, monocultural replanting, and a century of forest fire suppresion have contributed to the size and severity of the outbreak, and the outbreak itself may, with similar infestations, have significant effects on the capability of northern forests to remove greenhouse gas (CO2) from the atmosphere.
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Wikipedia