Positive Takeaways?

Field vest on, boots tied, and bug jacket zipped: Denali’s natural resource team is ready to head into the field to conduct research on our ever-changing landscape. Natural disturbances, like spruce beetle infestation, allow our team to better understand Alaska’s complex environment. Long-term monitoring projects conducted by Park Staff and partnering organizations are seeing the effects of spruce beetle. Below are the listed projects that may see change in their studies because of spruce beetle or are projects that have developed because of spruce beetle.

 

M. Perez

Summary of Fuel Treatment effects on Spruce Beetle

Denali’s Fire Management team implements hand-thinning (fuel) treatments in areas surrounding Park infrastructure to minimize wildfire risk. Methods of hand-thinning include removing live trees, removing branches up to 6 feet from the ground, and placing all material into burn piles. When planning for fuel treatments, management must consider the impacts to ecological and cultural resources—this includes how spruce beetle populations and distribution will be affected by hand-thinning projects. Although Northern Arizona University (NAU) found no relationship between hand-thinning treatments and the presence of spruce beetle, NAU did find that the amount of suitable woody debris from treated areas did influence the presence of live beetles at the site (most live beetles were found in the slash pile material vs live trees). This suggests that the slash piles should be burned before beetles are ready to disperse into surrounding healthy trees. The Denali Fire management ecologists will continue to monitor fuel treatment sites to establish longer-term trends in spruce survival in areas where thinning may have coincided with beetle flight season (May-July).

 

M. Perez

Rare Epiphytic Lichen

The Boreal Felt Lichen (Erioderma pedicellatum) is a rare epiphytic lichen found on spruce tree branches in the moist forests growing along the southern boundary of Denali National Park and Preserve. It was documented by Park scientists in 2007. A habitat study conducted in 2013 estimated Denali’s population of the Boreal Felt Lichen to be over 10x the world’s documented population! However, by 2018, these habitats had been heavily impacted by spruce beetle. Because the original study sites were set up to allow for long-term monitoring, the spruce beetle disturbance opened an opportunity to directly measure the change in the Erioderma population caused by spruce mortality. In this collaborative effort between the Park and the University of Northern Colorado, park scientists and researchers are able to track the fate of the Boreal Felt Lichen and the unique epiphytic lichen communities they are a part of.

 

M. Perez

Spruce Beetle Population and Flightime
By Jason Moan (Alaska DNR: Forest Health Program Manager)
The Alaska Division of Forestry & Fire Protection coordinates bark beetle monitoring efforts across numerous locations annually, from Southeast Alaska to the Interior. In coordination with Denali National Park and Preserve and other nearby affected landowners within the ongoing spruce beetle outbreak, we have a network of traps to monitor that beetle. The data collected help us assess relative spruce beetle population size and flight timing, both of which can influence management recommendations.

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