Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU

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The U.S. Geological Survey’s is offering a cooperative-agreement opportunity to universities that have the ability to conduct research on “Effects of climate-induced disturbances on forest ecosystems in the western US” that meet the objectives listed below. The objectives are to address the effects fire and bark beetle outbreaks on western forest carbon stocks, and model the role of climate in triggering mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the western US, by work that includes: 1) Quantify forest carbon stocks across the western United States affected by fires and bark beetle outbreaks, by approaches including: a) historical reconstruction of affected carbon stocks since 1980 (for fires) and since 1997 (for outbreaks) using existing datasets and agency inventories, with annual statistics and maps produced at county, state, regional, and subcontinental (Westwide) scales. b) Predict effects by incorporating projected estimates of future areas of climate-induced fire and outbreak areas at Westwide scale. c) Calibrate these broadscale determinations with estimates of affected carbon stocks for two local-to-landscape-scale case studies: i) Grand County, Colorado, where an extensive and severe insect outbreak is ongoing; ii) the large 2002 Hayman Fire in Colorado, using burn severity maps and forest inventory data. 2) Improve knowledge about climate drivers of insect outbreaks and subsequent tree mortality, which is necessary to accurately predict future outbreak regimes, by: a) Analyze climate influences on the five major outbreaks of mountain pine beetle (MPB) in the western United States that have occurred in the last 25 years, to include: i) assemble temperature, precipitation, drought severity, and soil moisture information from weather stations, climate data sets, and model results (e.g., VIC soil moisture); ii) collect tree ring samples from 1-5 of these sites (depending on time and funding) to characterize growth responses to the climate conditions at the time of outbreak; iii) apply state-of-the-art climate suitability modeling to estimate temperature and drought effects in each location to determine which of these climate factors were suitable; and iv) update existing models with improved parameters or methods and/or develop new models to capture missing processes. b) Build upon the information from (a) to forecast how future climate change will affect climate suitability for MPB epidemics by using multiple downscaled climate projections across a range of emission scenarios and climate models, and then estimate the effects of drought, winter mortality, and adaptive seasonality on MPB population dynamics in the coming decades, with an emphasis on understanding the contribution of each effect to overall climate suitability for MPB outbreaks.

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