TY - JOUR
T1 - Risk rating for mountain pine beetle infestation of lodgepole pine forests over large areas with ordinal regression modelling
AU - Robertson, C.
AU - Wulder, M. A.
AU - Nelson, T. A.
AU - White, J. C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by the Government of Canada as part of the Mountain Pine Beetle Program administered by Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, with additional information available at: http://mpb.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ .
PY - 2008/8/20
Y1 - 2008/8/20
N2 - The mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins is endemic to lodgepole pine, Pinus contorta var. latifolia Engelmann, forests in western Canada. However, the current beetle epidemic in this area highlights the challenges faced by forest managers tasked with prioritizing stands for mitigation activities such as salvage harvesting and direct control methods. In western Canada, the operational risk rating system for mountain pine beetle is based on biological knowledge gained from a rich legacy of stand-scale field studies. Due to the large spatial (millions of hectares affected) and temporal (over 10 years) extents of the current epidemic, new research into large-area mountain pine beetle processes has revealed further insights into the landscape-scale characteristics of beetle infested forests. In this paper, we evaluated the potential for this new knowledge to augment an established system for rating the short-term risk of tree mortality in a stand due to mountain pine beetle. New variables explored for utility in risk rating include direct shortwave radiation, site index, diameter at breast height, the temporal trends in local beetle populations, Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification and beetle-host interaction variables. Proportional odds ordinal regression was used to develop a model for the Vanderhoof Forest District in west-central British Columbia. Prediction on independent data was assessed with the area under the receiver operator curve (AUC), indicating good discriminatory power (AUC = 0.84) for predicting levels of mountain pine beetle-caused pine mortality.
AB - The mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins is endemic to lodgepole pine, Pinus contorta var. latifolia Engelmann, forests in western Canada. However, the current beetle epidemic in this area highlights the challenges faced by forest managers tasked with prioritizing stands for mitigation activities such as salvage harvesting and direct control methods. In western Canada, the operational risk rating system for mountain pine beetle is based on biological knowledge gained from a rich legacy of stand-scale field studies. Due to the large spatial (millions of hectares affected) and temporal (over 10 years) extents of the current epidemic, new research into large-area mountain pine beetle processes has revealed further insights into the landscape-scale characteristics of beetle infested forests. In this paper, we evaluated the potential for this new knowledge to augment an established system for rating the short-term risk of tree mortality in a stand due to mountain pine beetle. New variables explored for utility in risk rating include direct shortwave radiation, site index, diameter at breast height, the temporal trends in local beetle populations, Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification and beetle-host interaction variables. Proportional odds ordinal regression was used to develop a model for the Vanderhoof Forest District in west-central British Columbia. Prediction on independent data was assessed with the area under the receiver operator curve (AUC), indicating good discriminatory power (AUC = 0.84) for predicting levels of mountain pine beetle-caused pine mortality.
KW - Bark beetles
KW - Dendroctonus ponderosae
KW - Mountain pine beetle
KW - Risk rating
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=48849089811&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=48849089811&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.05.054
DO - 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.05.054
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:48849089811
SN - 0378-1127
VL - 256
SP - 900
EP - 912
JO - Forest Ecology and Management
JF - Forest Ecology and Management
IS - 5
ER -