Abstract

1 Populations of the spruce bark beetle, Ips lypographus (L.), are known to grow rapidly in storm-disturbed stands as a result of relaxation from intraspecific competition. In the present study, it was tested whether a second mechanism, escape in space from natural enemies, also contributes to the rapid population increase.2 The experiment was conducted during the initiation phase of five local outbreaks of I. typographus triggered by a storm-disturbance in November 1995 in southern Sweden.3 The impact of natural enemies on the ratio of increase (number of daughters per mother) of I. lypographus was compared pairwise between disturbed stands with high numbers of storm-felled trees and undisturbed stands without wind-felled trees.4 Enemy impact was assessed by comparing the ratio of increase in uncaged (exposed to enemies) and caged (protected from enemies) bolts colonized by L typographus prior to being placed in the stands. The experiment was conducted in the second and third summers after the storm-felling.5 Enemy impact was about twice as high in stands without wind-felled trees compared with in stands with wind-felled trees in the second summer whereas there was no significant difference between the stand types in the third summer.6 The result demonstrates that spatial escape from enemies contributes to the rapid population growth of L typographus after storm-disturbances.

Keywords

bark beetle outbreak; enemy impact; Ips typographus; spatial escape from enemies; storm-disturbance

Published in

Agricultural and Forest Entomology
2007, Volume: 9, number: 2, pages: 85-91
Publisher: BLACKWELL PUBLISHING

SLU Authors

• Schroeder, Martin

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Forest Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-9563.2007.00323.x

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/60404