Mapping whitebark pine mortality caused by a mountain pine beetle outbreak with high spatial resolution satellite imagery

The on-going mountain pine beetle outbreak in British Columbia has reached historic proportions. Recently, management efforts at the local level shifted from exhaustive mapping of the infestation, to detection and mitigation of sites with minimal levels of infestation, creating an operational need for efficient and cost-effective methods to identify red-attack trees in these areas. High spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery has the potential to satisfy this information need. This paper presents the unsupervised classification of 4 metre IKONOS multispectral imagery, for the detection of mountain pine beetle red-attack, at sites with minimal infestation (< 20% of trees infested). A 4-metre buffer (analogous to a single IKONOS pixel) was applied to the red-attack trees identified on the IKONOS imagery in order to account for positional errors. When compared to the independent validation data collected from the aerial photography, it was found that 70.1% (lightly infested sites) and 92.5% (moderately infested sites) of the red-attack trees existing on the ground were correctly identified through the classification of the remotely sensed IKONOS imagery. These results demonstrate the operational potential of using an unsupervised classification of IKONOS imagery to detect and map mountain pine beetle red-attack at sites with minimal levels of infestation. Key words: mountain pine beetle, remote sensing, accuracy assessment, IKONOS, red-attack

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Assessment of QuickBird high spatial resolution imagery to detect red attack damage due to mountain pine beetle infestation

Remote Sensing of Environment ◽

10.1016/j.rse.2006.03.012 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 103 (1) ◽

pp. 67-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 138

Author(s):

Nicholas C. Coops ◽

Matt Johnson ◽

Michael A. Wulder ◽

Joanne C. White

Keyword(s):

Spatial Resolution ◽

Mountain Pine Beetle ◽

High Spatial Resolution ◽

Mountain Pine ◽

Pine Beetle ◽

High Spatial Resolution Imagery

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Landscape Topoedaphic Features Create Refugia from Drought and Insect Disturbance in a Lodgepole and Whitebark Pine Forest

Forests ◽

10.3390/f9110715 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (11) ◽

pp. 715 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Jennifer Cartwright

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Mountain Pine Beetle ◽

Pine Forest ◽

Boosted Regression Trees ◽

Pine Forests ◽

Whitebark Pine ◽

Insect Outbreaks ◽

Landscape Characteristics ◽

Mountain Pine ◽

Pine Beetle

Droughts and insect outbreaks are primary disturbance processes linking climate change to tree mortality in western North America. Refugia from these disturbances—locations where impacts are less severe relative to the surrounding landscape—may be priorities for conservation, restoration, and monitoring. In this study, hypotheses concerning physical and biological processes supporting refugia were investigated by modelling the landscape controls on disturbance refugia that were identified using remotely sensed vegetation indicators. Refugia were identified at 30-m resolution using anomalies of Landsat-derived Normalized Difference Moisture Index in lodgepole and whitebark pine forests in southern Oregon, USA, in 2001 (a single-year drought with no insect outbreak) and 2009 (during a multi-year drought and severe outbreak of mountain pine beetle). Landscape controls on refugia (topographic, soil, and forest characteristics) were modeled using boosted regression trees. Landscape characteristics better explained and predicted refugia locations in 2009, when forest impacts were greater, than in 2001. Refugia in lodgepole and whitebark pine forests were generally associated with topographically shaded slopes, convergent environments such as valleys, areas of relatively low soil bulk density, and in thinner forest stands. In whitebark pine forest, refugia were associated with riparian areas along headwater streams. Spatial patterns in evapotranspiration, snowmelt dynamics, soil water storage, and drought-tolerance and insect-resistance abilities may help create refugia from drought and mountain pine beetle. Identification of the landscape characteristics supporting refugia can help forest managers target conservation resources in an era of climate-change exacerbation of droughts and insect outbreaks.

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Verbenone and Green-Leaf Volatiles Reduce Whitebark Pine Mortality in a Northern Range-Expanding Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/cjfr-2021-0120 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Etienne Cardinal ◽

Brenda Shepherd ◽

Jodie Krakowski ◽

Carl James Schwarz ◽

John Stirrett-Wood

Keyword(s):

Mountain Pine Beetle ◽

Green Leaf Volatiles ◽

Green Leaf ◽

Whitebark Pine ◽

White Pine Blister Rust ◽

Leaf Volatiles ◽

Disease Resistant ◽

Mountain Pine ◽

Pine Beetle ◽

Pine Trees

This is the first study testing effectiveness of semiochemical treatments to protect individual trees from a range-expanding mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) attack into newly exposed host populations of endangered whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis Engelmann). We investigated the effectiveness of a combination of verbenone and Green-Leaf Volatiles (GLV) to protect rare and valuable disease-resistant trees during a MPB epidemic from 2015 to 2018 in Jasper National Park, Canada. Treatments reduced the proportion of trees attacked by MPB for all diameter classes, across all stands, from 46 to 60%. We also evaluated the effect of the exotic disease white pine blister rust (caused by the fungus Cronartium ribicola J.C. Fisch), the species’ other main regional threat. MPB were less likely to attack large, rust infected trees than healthy trees, emphasizing the value of the semiochemical treatment. Protecting large, cone-bearing disease-resistant whitebark pine trees is fundamental to whitebark pine recovery. Maintaining reproductive trees on the landscape increases the frequency and diversity of rust-resistant genotypes more effectively than just planting seedlings to replace MPB-killed trees, because this slow-growing species takes over 80 years to reproduce. Our study confirmed protecting large rust-resistant trees with verbenone and GLV is a proactive and effective treatment against MPB for whitebark pine in naïve populations.

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