A Conceptual and Mechanistic Approach to Understanding Interactions among Multiple Disturbance Agents: Compound Effects of Fire on Resource Availability to Bark Beetles

树皮甲虫是一种原生昆虫，对森林生态系统有着巨大的影响。其中包括对营养循环和林隙形成等基本生态系统过程的贡献，对生物多样性的影响，以及有时对数百万棵树的广泛死亡。间歇性树皮甲虫爆发的频率和程度似乎受到多种人类影响的影响，包括气候变化、森林破碎化和各种管理政策。本研究将使用地面取样、树木生理生化分析和卫星图像来评估自然和人为干扰的主要形式，即火灾，对黑松对山松甲虫的易感性和山松甲虫繁殖的影响。它还将测试火灾伤害如何影响与山松甲虫竞争的其他非树木杀伤树皮甲虫的繁殖。这项工作将有助于我们对干扰因子如何在针叶林中相互作用的基本理解，并为资源管理者提供有用的信息。它将通过培养本科生、研究生和博士后，为科学基础设施做出贡献。这项跨学科的研究将在大黄石生态系统中进行，在那里它将与来自不同机构的其他合作者进行交互。

Bark beetles are native insects that exert dramatic effects on forest ecosystems. These include contributions to basic ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling and gap formation, impacts on biodiversity, and, at times, widespread mortality to millions of trees. The frequency and extent of intermittent bark beetle outbreaks appear to be influenced by several human impacts, including climate change, forest fragmentation, and various management policies. This research will use ground sampling, tree physiological and biochemical analyses, and satellite imagery to evaluate the effects of a major form of natural and human disturbance, fire, on susceptibility of lodgepole pine to the mountain pine beetle, and on mountain pine beetle reproduction. It also will test how fire injury affects reproduction by other, non tree-killing bark beetles that compete with mountain pine beetle. This work will contribute to our basic understanding of how disturbance agents interact in conifer forests, and provide useful information for resource managers. It will contribute to science infrastructure through the training of undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral associates. This interdisciplinary study will be conducted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where it will interface with other collaborators from various institutions.