Doctoral Dissertation Research: Evaluating whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) resistance and resilience to fire and insect outbreaks

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This doctoral dissertation project will investigate how a culturally and ecologically important tree species, whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), has physiologically adapted to disturbances such as fire in high-elevation subalpine forests in mountain environments. Wildfire, insect outbreaks and diseases play an important role in creating conditions in which whitebark pine (WBP) forests can persist in high-elevation ecosystems. Subalpine forest tree species have developed different strategies to survive these disturbances including the growth of thick bark to survive fires and resin ducts that expel insects such as mountain pine beetles. This research will evaluate the different strategies used by WBP trees to survive disturbances. The results will provide insights into different growth and defense strategies that may be beneficial to increasing survivorship and promoting WBP establishment and persistence. Better understanding how WBP trees respond to disturbance will provide valuable information for natural resource managers tasked with maintaining WBP stands into the future. Furthermore, this project will support the training of a doctoral student. Fire, insect outbreaks and disease play an important role in the long-term establishment and persistence of WBP forests, however, research is lacking to understand the growth mechanisms that WBP trees use to persist under different histories of disturbance. Our research will assess the influence of wildfire and mountain pine beetle activity on WBP physiology by examining growth (ring-widths) and defense characteristics (duct anatomy and resin chemistry) for over 200 trees at three different high-elevation forest sites. This research will provide important information on the characteristics and conditions under which WBP respond to multiple disturbances that are increasing in subalpine forests. This work is important for restoration efforts to sustain ecologically important WBP forests into the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.