COLONIZATION OF DISTURBED TREES BY THE SOUTHERN PINE BARK BEETLE GUILD (COLEOPTERA, SCOLYTIDAE) Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Dendroctonus frontalis, D. terebrans, Ips calligraphus, I. grandicollis and I. avulsus use disturbed hosts as habitat for establishment of within-tree populations. The time delay between arrival and attack for D. frontalis and I. calligraphus was calculated. Attack densities of both species became asymptotic as arrival increased. The percentage of arriving beetles that attacked ranged from 9-41 for D. frontalis and 8-59 for I. calligraphus. Numbers of beetles that arrived at the tree but did not attack ranged from 2.7-50.2 beetles per dm2for D. frontalis and 0.2-10.0 beetles per dm2for I. calligraphus. Egg gallery excavated by D. frontalis increased throughout the study. Eventually, the Ips species were excluded from the lower half of the bole. The low attack densities observed in this study iilustrate the significance of disturbed trees in providing refuges for enzootic levels of bark beetles. The aggregation behaviour of beetle populations colonizing disturbed hosts supported the contention that these trees serve as foci for initiation of infestations. In disturbed pines, small numbers of beetles were capable of overcoming host defense systems. -from Authors

published proceedings

  • ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY

altmetric score

  • 7

author list (cited authors)

  • FLAMM, R. O., PULLEY, P. E., & COULSON, R. N.

citation count

  • 40

complete list of authors

  • FLAMM, RO||PULLEY, PE||COULSON, RN

publication date

  • February 1993