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IV. Parasitic Plants Affecting Forest Structure
Dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium americanum) is a higher plant
which grows as a parasite in the stem and branches of lodgepole pine,
from which it receives the water and most of the carbohydrates it needs.
It causes swelling of branches and, as it grows, causes abnormal
branching above the infection, forming "witches brooms." Tree
height and density of the upper crown are reduced in heavily infected
trees at Crater Lake, and diameter and root growth may be likewise
affected. One hypothesis states that thickness and food content of the
phloem tissue may be reduced by heavy mistletoe infection, rendering
those trees less susceptible to mortality from bark beetles. Trees with
heavy dwarf mistletoe infection often have dead tops. Heavy infection in
a young tree may prevent its development to mature size and form.
Infection is often inconspicuous when the parasite does not produce
aerial shoots or does not cause "witches broom" formation.
These mistletoe effects on growth and form of individual trees seem
to result in a more open canopy in heavily infected stands. On severe
sites, the largest, oldest trees are almost all heavily infected with
dwarf mistletoe. Perhaps they reach their size chiefly as a result of
their lower ability to support bark beetle attack.
This species of mistletoe, of which the primary host is lodgepole
pine, disappears from a site when the host is totally destroyed or
replaced by fir or hemlock. Thus it must be reintroduced to a new
population of pine. It moves into an uninfected stand slowly, about 0.7
m yr-1, primarily by short-range mechanical seed dispersal,
although long-distance transport by birds occasionally occurs. Thus,
areas from which lodgepole is periodically absent tend to have less
infection than those where the tree can reproduce without catastrophic
destruction. In these all-aged forests with large mistletoe populations
few new trees reach the overstory without considerable mistletoe
infection. These forests which are open enough to allow continuous
reproduction of lodgepole pine have very low and discontinuous surface
fuels. Most fires would have been confined to local pockets of
continuous fuel, small enough to have their new trees immediately
reinfected by seeds from plants on adjacent infected trees. Dwarf
mistletoe is not responsible for the sparse nature of the stands where
primeval lodgepole pine continuously reproduced. We believe heavy
infections have always been present; management to reduce mistletoe on
these sites is not necessary.
Western gall rust (Peredermium harknessii) infects many
lodgepole pine stands. Trees with a stem infection often snap off at the
canker. In some spots this may cause small openings in the forest canopy
and speed fuel buildup on the forest floor, perhaps allowing lodgepole
reproduction, or releasing small trees of shade tolerant species, such
as fir and hemlock.
V. Primary Causes of Death of Lodgepole Pine
Very few lodgepole pines reach the age and size of which they are
capable; most probably die at a relatively young age following either
fire or infestation by mountain pine beetle (Dendroctanus
ponderosae).
A. Mountain Pine Beetle
Mountain pine beetles often attack lodgepole pines. The female bores
through the outer bark and lays her eggs in the inner bark; after
hatching, the larvae feed on the phloem tissue. A heavy attack quickly
results in death.
After an initial attack the females may abandon a tree if conditions
are unsuitable. Suitability is apparently associated with phloem
thickness; phloem thickness increases with tree diameter; thus beetles
preferentially attack larger trees, which suffer the greatest mortality.
Trees with thin phloem, due to their small size (or, in cases, perhaps
due to heavy mistletoe infection), are relatively immune. The usual
diameter of susceptibility is 25-35 cm in the Rocky Mountains and seems
similar here.
At the elevations encountered in the Park mountain pine beetle
populations are food-limited. Under endemic conditions beetle
populations are low, selectively removing only a few large individuals
from a susceptible stand each year. The populations may be kept at
endemic levels for several reasons: there may not be enough large trees
to support increasing numbers of beetles; the trees may be vigorous
enough to successfully resist attack; environmental conditions may be
too severe (e.g. low temperature) to permit large scale brood survival.
At Crater Lake conditions restricting beetle population buildup may be
encountered in a multi-aged lodgepole stand where there are only a few
trees of susceptible size at any given time. There are apparently no
stands at Crater Lake that are either vigorous enough to perpetually
resist attack or at high enough elevations so that environmental
extremes always restrict beetle activity.
Epidemic conditions arise when the available food supply is large and
environmental conditions (both physical and biotic) permit large-scale
brood survival. Populations increase as the beetles successfully attack
most of the large trees, each of which produces large numbers of adults.
Thus, epidemics are more likely to occur, and impact is most severe, in
single-aged stands where most individuals reach a susceptible size at
about the same time. As most of the large trees are killed the beetles
are forced to attack trees as small as 10 cm dbh. These trees with thin
phloem are incapable of supporting large numbers of brood. As the brood
starve to death in the smaller trees, and disease and predators
increase, the beetle population declines.
Following an epidemic, activity may remain low for years until
surviving trees reach the most susceptible size class. In a lodgepole
climax stand, openings from beetle-caused mortality permit increased
lodgepole reproduction. As this age class reaches susceptible size and
conditions permit, another bark beetle epidemic is likely. In seral
stands the shade tolerant species are released and replace the pine
unless fire recycles the stand to lodgepole. In both cases epidemics
greatly increase the amount of fuel on the forest floor.
No known control method for mountain pine beetle is effective over
large areas. The last attempts at control at Crater Lake were abandoned
several years ago. Beetle activity, since it is affected by the number
of susceptible trees, will probably continue to be high as the lodgepole
stands which originated in 1850-1900 reach susceptible size. Then the
level will probably wane somewhat as some seral stands are replaced by
fir and hemlock.
B. Fire
Lodgepole pine is easily killed by fire, as it has thin bark even
when old. Trees affected by fire but not killed directly succumbed in
10-12 months to bark beetles (Ips pini and Dendroctanus
ponderosae) in the 1976 Panhandle control burn. Fire decreases the
seed availability on the site, because cones are not serotinous.
However, removal of overstory shade and litter enhances seedling
survival. Major tree competitors, western white pine, the firs and
mountain hemlock, are all very susceptible to fire when young, but
develop thicker bark with age, and become more resistant than lodgepole.
Many understory plants such as grasses and sedges may recover rapidly
after fire and some may increase with repeated fires (see Appendix D).
Others may be reduced in importance or eliminated at least temporarily.
Thus, response of tree regeneration to fire may vary with the ground
cover present, as a result of its interference with seedling
establishment.
Although fire will reduce the litter on the forest floor, the dead
lodgepole needles and twigs will rapidly replenish the fine litter and,
as the snags fall, heavy fuels may become very dense. (In the Rocky
Mountains, half the snags fall in about 15 years). The usual increase in
fuels following fire in lodgepole is in sharp contrast to the fuel
reduction which occurred after fire in the primeval ponderosa pine
forests, where most of the overstory survived. Fire scar and age class
data indicate that some areas which burned in the primeval forest were
reburned within twenty to thirty years.
Evidence for the fire history of lodgepole forests comes from several
sources: (1) Fire scars are rare. The few are mostly in one community.
Those on other species in lodgepole forests are also rare, with the most
common, on western white pine, having a record of only two fires. (2)
Charcoal is present in variable amounts in the forests. Surface charcoal
collected in many stands was identified as lodgepole pine, or white
pine, or non-pine species. This can separate stands where fir and
hemlock were previously present from those which were only lodgepole
pine. (3) Presence of very common age classes may indicate an origin
after fire; they may also indicate disturbance by bark beetles or wind
effects, or simply the coincidence of heavy seed years with very
favorable conditions for seedling establishment, in some communities.
(4) Reports by the early qualified observers (e.g. Leiberg 1900),
histories of Indian activity, and park records of lightning fires
provide much pertinent information.
Lightning fires are common (7 per year recently) in the Crater Lake
area and were almost certainly the major ignition source in primeval
lodgepole pine forests. Although some low elevation stands were probably
burned by Indian-caused fires moving up slope, there was little Indian
activity at high elevations where most lodgepole forests are. This
situation changed drastically with the arrival of white man in the area
about 1855. Fires were used in roadbuilding and caused by visitors and
hunters. Grazing on the west slope was accompanied by extensive burning.
Considerable fir and hemlock forest was converted to lodgepole pine by
this burning, which certainly also burned some of the lodge pole already
present. Our age data confirm the historical reports, with many
lodgepole stands originating between 1855 and 1900, and many older ones
having large age classes established then. These are particularly
evident in the areas of greatest activity by white man, the west slope,
Pinnacles Valley, and the general route of the Union Creek - Fort
Klamath road. With fire suppression, man-caused fires and the size of
lightning fires were greatly reduced. These activities of white man have
thus resulted in differences from the amounts of lodgepole forest one
would have expected with primeval conditions; there is more area of 75
to 120 year old stands and less of younger stands than there would have
been.
C. Fire - Bark Beetle Interactions
The effects of fire and bark beetles are not independent of each
other. Lodgepole trees which survive fire seem very susceptible to bark
beetles, perhaps capable of triggering an epidemic. Trees killed by bark
beetles quickly become fuel to support more intense fires Fire allows
another generation of lodgepole pine, which can eventually support more
beetles. In contrast, beetle kill of lodgepole in seral forests opens
the canopy and thus accelerates growth of the fir and hemlock and the
transition to the more fire-proof fir-hemlock forest. The long term
effect of beetles thus may be to decrease chance of fire earlier than
otherwise, if the stage of high fuel loads passes without
fire.
In many northern Rocky Mountain forests, fire suppression led to
abnormally large areas of old lodgepole pine with resulting massive
beetle kills, much larger than would have occurred in the primeval
condition. At Crater Lake, some seral forests have recently reached the
size of susceptibility to beetles; recycling them to new, beetle-proof
stands with controlled fire might seem a logical thing to do. However,
this appears NOT to be appropriate. Many of these stands were converted
from fir-hemlock to lodgepole by fires caused by white man and a return
to primeval conditions requires some area of lodgepole forest be allowed
to revert to fir-hemlock. Furthermore, controlled burning in lodgepole
reduces fuel loads only temporarily, since the overstory is usually
killed, producing extremely high ground fuels as the debris falls, and
probably requiring a reburn for safety. In the resulting lodgepole
stand, fire danger and beetle susceptibility eventually will be high
again. Thus, a general program of controlled burning in seral stands is
ruled out by (1) the policy to return to primeval forest, which requires
conversion of some lodgepole forest to fir-hemlock, and (2) long-range
safety considerations, i.e., allowing stands to develop naturally to
fir-hemlock and thus reducing the fire danger permanently at no
management cost. A present period of widespread beetle kills and the
resultant high fire danger appear to be the price of a return toward
primeval conditions in several of the seral communities.
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