Sentences with phrase «of whitebark»

Fire suppression in the post-settlement era has meant fewer fires and thus fewer opportunities for regeneration of whitebark pines.

Unlike their salmon - eating kin in Canada, or berry - eating cousins in Glacier National Park, Yellowstone grizzlies really don't have a high - calorie substitute for the loss of whitebark pines to blister rust.

The attack by mountain pine beetles is posing a major threat to the forest ecosystems of the whitebark pine forests.

Vast stands of whitebark pine help to maintain the mountain snowpacks that provide water to more than 30 million people in 16 U.S. states each year.

Over the last decade, some populations of whitebark pines have declined by more than 90 percent.

«They represent the future of whitebark pines.»

The study, appearing in this month's issue of Ecology, also portends even harder times for the grizzlies, thanks to recent poor yields of whitebark pine seeds, one of the bear's key foods.

By 2008, much of the whitebark population of Yellowstone National Park would be similarly afflicted.

Not exact matches

Clinging to its rocky soil are some of the oldest trees in the western United States — slow - growing whitebark pines, the oldest dating back more than a millennium.

For example, white pine blister rust, caused by the fungus (Cronartium ribicola), has put western white pine, limber pine, and whitebark pine in some areas of Montana in jeopardy (Smith et al. 2008).

Beetles gained similar strength in the Rockies during mild winters in the late»90s and early 2000s, killing not only their usual victims but also entire hillsides of ancient whitebark pines, which live at altitudes once too frigid to support the insects.A beautifully concise explanation of what has happened in a large portion of the West, thanks in part to climate change.

But this new study by a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin - Madison has found that the warming temperatures have resulted in mountain pine beetles increasingly invading high - elevation forests, like the whitebark pine forests of the northern Rocky Mountains, and attacking them.

Currently we are focused on the ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with whitebark pine and the biodiversity / biogeography of true alpine fungi in the Rocky Mountains.

His whitebark pine research plots in the White Cloud Mountains of Idaho were first attacked by mountain pine beetles in 2001.

If blister rust can be regarded as a steadily, if slow - moving, disaster for whitebark pine, the relatively dramatic and sudden attack of mountain pine beetles can be regarded as a biological firestorm, fueled by global warming, experts at a recent workshop sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

The hope for whitebark pines in the face of the blister rust epidemic is that some trees are resistant and pass that resistance on to seedlings, which can be replanted in the wild, until genetic resistance to blister rust is well - distributed.

That means fewer young whitebark pines and a majority of older, mature whitebark pines.

Six said that blister rust, drought and the ongoing pine beetle outbreak are each bad for whitebark pines, in and of themselves.

She stood before a whitebark pine tree in the high country of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

A few years ago, Six was stunned to find sites where the mountain pine beetle was skipping right over lower - altitude stands of lodgepole pines, to focus on and kill whitebark pine stands at higher altitudes.

Yet when whitebark pine nut crops fail or do poorly, grizzlies tend to abandon the high country in search of food.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK - A history of fire suppression, an invasive fungal plague, and rampant insect infestation fueled by global warming add up to likely extinction for the whitebark pine and serious trouble for the grizzly bear and other species that depend on it, some scientists say.

The bears raid squirrel middens or caches of stored whitebark pine nuts in the fall, adding on the layers of fat that will get the bears through long winters, and improve the odds that grizzly mothers will have successful pregnancies.

Swaths of dead whitebarks now stretch across the landscape, their telltale red needles bearing witness to the unprecedented impacts of climate change in this iconic ecosystem.

Across the American West, whitebark pine, a linchpin of high - altitude ecosystems, is rapidly falling victim to the aggressive mountain pine beetle.

He is seeing the same, rapid onslaught of mountain pine beetles in the whitebark pine stands of Wyoming's Togwotee Pass, and Avalanche Peak in Yellowstone National Park.

As the fungal disease spreads south and east, it leaves behind «ghost» forests, Tomback said - stands of dead whitebark pine and mortality rates of 90 percent or higher.

The MPB is attacking a set of highly important pine species (Pinus spp.) over a very large area of western North America, especially lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), but also some of the other five needle pines (esp.

Tree spatial patterns are a component in this thing and are one of the reasons that species like lodgepole, ponderosa and whitebark pine get hit so hard — they are all capable of forming single species stands, making contagious spread easier, especially given that pheromone signalling is involved.