Ent 222 Forest Health monitoring of endemic MPB

How do we monitor forest insects and diseases?

• General trends: record spatial and temporal variation in tree damage and mortality from forest pests and diseases

• Identify insect and disease population trends for appropriate management as a part of IPM

• Detect threats to species and disease population trends for appropriate management as a part of IPM program

what is the scale for forest health monitoring?

scale of application; tree, stand, region and landscape

What is forest integrated pest management?

 the practice of monitoring and managing pest and environmental information with pest control methods to prevent pest damage  to forests and forests by the most economcal means.

What does risk assesment look for forest pests?

• Identify the potential impacts to forest ecosystems

• Generate forest pest and pathogen risk map at a useful scale for resource planning and management purposes

• Develop an effective strategic planning tool that can inform assesments of natural ecosustems and ensure resources for forest pest prevention, suppressuin and restoration reaches the highest priority areas

• Detect areas where hazardous fuel treatments coincide with lands at risk for forest pest activity, much of which is density driven. Effective fire management, prescribed burning, planning and other efficiencies will be gained by prioritizing coincident areas

• Preparedness and safey

What are some characteritstics of aerial survey methods?

• Sketch mapping from a fixed wing aircraft flown at 500 - 1000 m

• Helicopter used if greater accuracy is needed

• General location of the damage

• The trend in damage

• Severity of impact

What are the benefits vs costs of drone or satellite based imagery?

• High resolution aerial imagery

• High cost and low accessibility

• Images can have clouds

• Mixed results

• Goal is to improve efficiency and accuracy to locate and detect increasing populations

What are the kinds of pheromone based traps used for MPB?

• Trap trees

• Synthetic lures

• Traps

How many MPB live in western canada as of current date?

Low MPB population in western Canada → recently collapsed MPB population in alberta and endemic population in BC (2019-2024)

What are the characteristics of endemic MPB?

• Attack moribund trees associated with low vigour, secondary beetles and mechanical damage

• Need to know stand- and landscape- level characteristics associated wih endemic MPB

• Persistence vs extirpation

How do we test endemic MPB populations?

• Not easily detectable with aerial detection surveys

• Use a commercial lure; synthetic pheromone lures developed for use while populations are increasing and outbreaking

—> Better tools are needed

What are the research objectives for endemic MPB research?

• Determine distribution of endemic MPB populations on a landscape

• Identify ways to use the potential shift in attraction to aggregation pheromone with population density

What did they add to enhance their lures?

7 trans verbenol

what were the results of MPB catching with enhanced traps?

Number of MPB caught in 2023-2025

• 2X greater in areas with low MPB infested tree density

• 62% of traps caught no MPB

→ No significant results

How did the probability of catching MPB vary with province?

Probability of catching MBP lower in AB and varied with lure 

47% lower in AB compared to BC

Interaction between detention and lure type

Very slight increase in probability of catching MPB in areas with endemic MPB in AB when using trans-verbanol lure

What were the conclusions of MPB research?

• Endemic MPB presence

• MPB can still be trapped in western AB which may have implications for where MPB populations build up

• Identifying preliminary evidence for improved pheromone tools to detect endemic to low level MPB populations

• Lure series with commercial lure and enhanced release rate of 7-trans verbanol

→ Need to understand accuracy and limitations of forest health monitoring techniques to identify appropriate uses