Comments on: Appetite for Destruction http://www.scienceline.org/2008/05/09/env-olson-pinebeetle/ The Shortest Distance Between You and Science Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:47:04 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: nmiosdhfkj http://www.scienceline.org/2008/05/09/env-olson-pinebeetle/comment-page-1/#comment-1928 nmiosdhfkj Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:00:03 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2008/03/28/env-olson-pinebeetle/#comment-1928 i just think they taste good with chocolate milk!! i just think they taste good with chocolate milk!!

]]> By: Hank Roberts http://www.scienceline.org/2008/05/09/env-olson-pinebeetle/comment-page-1/#comment-1830 Hank Roberts Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:52:00 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2008/03/28/env-olson-pinebeetle/#comment-1830 I'd appreciate a followup on the prospects for flickers and woodpeckers, not to mention fence lizards and whatever else eats these beetles. I've watched areas in N. Ca. fairly attentively since a fire in the late 1980s and saw an enormous rise in lizards, which would hang around whenever they saw me having figured out I would pull up bark on dead trees -- and they'd zip in and grab a beetle apiece while I was looking. Not many flickers or woodpeckers, which worries me, they ought to have been able to show a population bump with so much added food. I’d appreciate a followup on the prospects for flickers and woodpeckers, not to mention fence lizards and whatever else eats these beetles.

I’ve watched areas in N. Ca. fairly attentively since a fire in the late 1980s and saw an enormous rise in lizards, which would hang around whenever they saw me having figured out I would pull up bark on dead trees — and they’d zip in and grab a beetle apiece while I was looking.

Not many flickers or woodpeckers, which worries me, they ought to have been able to show a population bump with so much added food.

]]> By: Edmond C. Packee http://www.scienceline.org/2008/05/09/env-olson-pinebeetle/comment-page-1/#comment-1561 Edmond C. Packee Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:57:32 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2008/03/28/env-olson-pinebeetle/#comment-1561 1. There are no pine in interior or cnetral Alaska. 2. Beetle in Alaska and western Yukon territory is the spruce beetle Dendroctonus rufipennis--it attacks white spruce, black spruce (lesser degree), and Sitka spruce. 3. In two years (2005 and 2006) fire consumed about 10,000,000 acres in Alaska and also burned in Yukon Territory; in Alaska about 3 times fire killed acres in 2 years than beetle killed acres over 25 years. 4. In boreal conditions, except wetter climatic areas, beetle-killed and fire-killed white spruce do not decay fast; so loss is lack of photosynthesis; prompt regeneration is partial solution 5. Are beetles (pine and spruce) spreading because of climate change or because trees over extensive areas due to past disturbances (fire) becoming ideal sozed beetle fodder? 1. There are no pine in interior or cnetral Alaska.
2. Beetle in Alaska and western Yukon territory is the spruce beetle Dendroctonus rufipennis–it attacks white spruce, black spruce (lesser degree), and Sitka spruce.
3. In two years (2005 and 2006) fire consumed about 10,000,000 acres in Alaska and also burned in Yukon Territory; in Alaska about 3 times fire killed acres in 2 years than beetle killed acres over 25 years.
4. In boreal conditions, except wetter climatic areas, beetle-killed and fire-killed white spruce do not decay fast; so loss is lack of photosynthesis; prompt regeneration is partial solution
5. Are beetles (pine and spruce) spreading because of climate change or because trees over extensive areas due to past disturbances (fire) becoming ideal sozed beetle fodder?

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