Discovery of continental-scale travelling waves and lagged synchrony in geometrid moth outbreaks prompt a re-evaluation of mountain birch/geometrid studies

Abstract

The spatio-temporal dynamics of populations of two 9-10 year cyclic-outbreaking geometrids, Operophtera brumata and Epirrita autumnata in mountain birch forests in northern Fennoscandia, have been studied since the 1970´s by a Swedish-Norwegian research team and, during the last decade, by Norwegian and Finnish research teams. Some of the early results have been challenged by the Norwegian team. To examine the base for disagreements, five of the papers published by the Norwegian team (2004-2011) are reviewed. It is found that conclusions in these papers are questionable or data could not be interpreted fully because two decisive traits in the spatio-temporal behaviour of outbreaks of the two species were not considered.

Published in

F1000Research
2013, Volume: 2, article number: 128

SLU Authors

• Tenow, Olle

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.2-128.v2

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/52371