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Are bark beetle outbreaks less synchronous than forest Lepidoptera outbreaks?

  • Population Ecology
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Abstract

Comparisons of intraspecific spatial synchrony across multiple epidemic insect species can be useful for generating hypotheses about major determinants of population patterns at larger scales. The present study compares patterns of spatial synchrony in outbreaks of six epidemic bark beetle species in North America and Europe. Spatial synchrony among populations of the Eurasian spruce bark beetle Ips typographus was significantly higher than for the other bark beetle species. The spatial synchrony observed in epidemic bark beetles was also compared with previously published patterns of synchrony in outbreaks of defoliating forest Lepidoptera, revealing a marked difference between these two major insect groups. The bark beetles exhibited a generally lower degree of spatial synchrony than the Lepidoptera, possibly because bark beetles are synchronized by different weather variables that are acting on a smaller scale than those affecting the Lepidoptera, or because inherent differences in their dynamics leads to more cyclic oscillations and more synchronous spatial dynamics in the Lepidoptera.

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Acknowledgements

This study was performed at the Penn State University and the Norwegian Forest Research Institute, and received financially support from the Norwegian Research Council (the Climate Effect Programme), the Norwegian Forest Research Institute, and USDA grant 2002-35302-12656. We thank the USDA Forest Service for outbreak maps and Gino Luzader for digitization and preparation of datasets from the outbreak maps.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Forest Research Institute, Høgskoleveien 8, 1432, Ås, Norway

    Bjørn Økland & Paal Krokene

  2. USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station, 180 Canfield St, Morgantown, WV, 26505, USA

    Andrew M. Liebhold

  3. Departments of Entomology and Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    Ottar N. Bjørnstad

  4. Division of Insect Biology, University of California, 137 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Nadir Erbilgin

Authors
  1. Bjørn Økland
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  2. Andrew M. Liebhold
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  3. Ottar N. Bjørnstad
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  4. Nadir Erbilgin
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  5. Paal Krokene
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bjørn Økland.

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Communicated by Sven Bacher

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Økland, B., Liebhold, A.M., Bjørnstad, O.N. et al. Are bark beetle outbreaks less synchronous than forest Lepidoptera outbreaks?. Oecologia 146, 365–372 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-005-0221-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-005-0221-2

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