The Douglas-fir tussock moth (DFTM) is a forest defoliating insect that is subject to periodic population outbreaks. These outbreaks are sometimes spatially synchronized across hundreds of kilometers.
Recent empirical and theoretical studies have indicated that epizootics of baculoviruses in defoliating insects may result in the termination of outbreaks starting from lower initial infection rates than previously believed.
Stream habitat restoration in the Entiat River, Washington, has increased juvenile Chinook abundance in pools with engineered logjams (ELJs); however, high spatial, temporal, and inter-species variation complicates distinguishing treatment effects between restored and unrestored habitat.
The Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system has been further enhanced with an analytical engine—BayesFusion’s SMILE (Structural Modeling, Inference, and Learning Engine) that comes with the GeNIe (Graphical Network Interface) software—for creating Bayesian network (BN) models.
Hand-constructed piles in eastern Washington and north-central New Mexico were weighed periodically between October 2011 and June 2015 to develop decay-rate constants that are useful for estimating the rate of piled biomass loss over time.
Wood decay elements include snags, down wood, root wads, tree stumps, litter, duff, broomed or diseased branches, and partially dead trees, all of which contribute to ecological processes and biodiversity of the forest ecosystem.
Fungi are key players in the health, diversity, and productivity of forest ecosystems in Pacific Northwest forests, as mycorrhizal associations, pathogens, decomposers, nontimber resources, and food resources for wildlife.
We conducted an experimental study of infection, transmission, and persistence of a nucleopolyhedrovirus (NPV) of Douglas-fir tussock moth (Orgyia pseudotsugata) to better understand mechanisms determining the efficacy of the virus when it is used as a microbial control agent.
A detailed procedure is described for monitoring western spruce budworm with pheromone-baited sticky traps and interpreting the results to predict defoliation the following year.
