Monitoring whitebark pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: 2018 annual report
Greater Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Monitoring Working Group. 2019. Monitoring whitebark pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: 2018 annual report. Natural Resource Data Series. Natural Resource Data Series NPS/GRYN/NRDS—2019/1225. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) occurs at high elevations and in subalpine communities in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains. It is a key component in the upper ranges of these ecosystems where it plays a variety of ecological roles, including regulating snowpack and provid-ing high-energy food sources to birds and mammals. As a stone pine species, it produces cones with wingless seeds and relies primarily on birds for seed dispersal. In mixed and dominant stands, whitebark pine occurs in over two million acres within the five national forests, three national parks, and Bureau of Land Management lands that make up the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Cur-rently, whitebark pine is impacted by multiple ecological disturbances. White pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola), mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), wildfires, and climate change all pose significant threats to the persis-tence of healthy whitebark pine populations on the land-scape. Substantial declines in whitebark pine populations have been documented throughout its range. In 2004, an in-teragency whitebark pine long-term monitoring program was established. The objectives of the whitebark pine monitoring program are to detect and monitor changes in the health and status of whitebark pine populations across the GYE due to infection by white pine blister rust, attack by mountain pine beetle, and damage by other environmental and anthropo-genic agents. This report is a summary of data collected in 2018 on Panel 3 of the four total sample panels (Panels 1 through 4), and marks the fifteenth year of monitoring.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Greater Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Monitoring Working Group
- Date of Issue
- 2019-05
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- GRTE , GRYN , JODR , NRSS , YELL
- Keywords
- blister rust, fire, mountain pine beetle, White pine
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Invasive Species | Invasive/Exotic plants , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Infestations and Disease | Plant Diseases , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Forest/Woodland Communities