Tuesday, April 23, 2019

"Many of our native bumblebee species are rapidly declining across North America"................I daresay that since living in Los Angeles(circa 1999), there has been a noticable decline of bumblebees of all kinds in my native plant garden that circles my home..........."They are important pollinators needed to grow North America's crops including apples, tomatoes, blueberries and legumes, as well as countless types of trees, shrubs, and wildflowers"..........'In particular, the American Bumblebee is at risk of extinction and it’s currently not protected in any way despite the drastic decline"............."The researchers found that the American Bumblebee’s area of occurrence has decreased by about 70 percent and its relative abundance fell by 89 percent from 2007-2016 compared to 1907-2006".................In addition to habitat alteration, during the 1990s, farmers began releasing captive bred Common Eastern Bumble Bees into greenhouses to increase crop production, especially for indoor-grown crops like tomatoes"................"Some colonies may have been infected with pathogens and parasites, which they then spread to wild bees in the same areas"..............."Honey bees, introduced to North America in the eighteenth century, may spread RNA viruses and other pathogens to wild bees through shared use of flowers".................."Another culprit is likely common pesticides, including neonicotinoids"..............."Neonicotinoid pesticides are particularly dangerous to bees because plants absorb them through the roots, rendering all plant parts toxic to insects".......... "This includes pollen and nectar, essential components of the bee diet"

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogrssfeed/~3/GxP3-gbWAkc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email Disappearing Bumblebee Spe...
Monday, April 22, 2019

Off of yesterday's POST regarding how Beetle infested forests impact browsers and carnivores, wanted to explore how these western North American native insects impact forest succession(tree composition)...........What tree species will step forth and "frontier" the dead pines and spruces?...........The USDA, U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Parks & Wildlife say the following---"Mountain pine beetles are likely to create multi-aged forest stands by removing large-diameter trees, reducing stand densities, and providing growing space for other canopy trees and below the main canopy"................."As an example, in the Yellowstone Area after a beetle outbreak in the ‘60 & ‘70s, about 40-70% of the overstory trees died, with surviving trees increasing in growth by 2-3 fold for two decades"........."Pine recruitment(% of forest cover) has been at least equal to previous decades"..........."Pine beetle killed stands recover to pre-MPB stand structure in a century with Logger uncut & partial cut stands dominated by fir and clear Logger cut stands similar in composition to pre-MPB stands dominated by pine"..........."While that has been the path in Yellowstone post beetle outbreak, it is recognized tha regenerating forests can take many different paths, depending on various factors including local climate and the presence of other trees such as aspen, spruce, and fir"..............."Some beetle-killed forests may grow back with more natural diversity than exists today, and others may regenerate back to pure single-aged lodgepole pine".........."Future dominance of species will vary from site to site depending on factors such as site quality, established regeneration, moisture, elevation, and cardinal direction of stands".............

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https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5359293.pdf https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/bark-pine-beetles-c...
Sunday, April 21, 2019

"Spruce beetle and mountain pine beetle outbreaks have impacted millions of acres of conifer forest from Alaska to northern Mexico"..........."These species are native to North America, and periodic outbreaks have shaped the structure and composition of conifer forests for millennia"................ "To characterize the response of a suite of mammalian species to beetle‐induced changes in vegetation in the southern Rocky Mountains, Colorado Parks and Wildlife(WPS) deployed cameras at 300 randomly selected sites during summer 2013–2014"............. . "Ungulates(deer, elk, moose) generally exhibited a positive association with bark beetle outbreaks"............ "Elk were positively associated with severity, but not a decade after outbreak.........."Mule deer exhibited the opposite relationship"............."Moose used forest stands adjacent to preferred willow habitat, peaking3–7 yr after an outbreak commenced, but only in high severity locales"............"Black bears, American marten, snowshoe hares, and porcupines did not appear to be substantially influenced by beetle activity"............"Red fox use was positively associated with beetle stands after a decade, but overall use declined as severity increased"............."Red squirrel use declined in severely impacted stands, likely as a response to diminished cone crops".................."Golden‐mantled ground squirrels and chipmunks exhibited a shallow negative relationship after a decade passed as did coyotes"

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https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.craigdailypress.com/news/cpw-study-investigates-wildlife-response-to-forest-co...