Conservation Biology Laboratory 10

Whitebark Pine Communities: Landscape Ecology and Restoration

The book, Whitebark Pine Communities: Ecology and Restoration, provides us with some state of the art management studies (as well as a nice demonstration of ecological concepts) on, perhaps, one of the hottest issues facing managers in the northern Rocky Mountains today. The potential loss of an important keystone species, Pinus albicaulis, across wide areas of alpine habitat could have significant ecological ramifactions. The whole structure of the alpine community could be effected by damage to whitebark pine populations. You will see that whitebark pine trees are threatened as a result of a variety of issues (beetle infestation, exotic disease introduction, fire suppression and, perhaps, management policies themselves).

Please read Chapters 14 and 20 in Whitebark Pine Communities: Ecology and Restoration.

Please answer the following questions on Chapters 14 and 20 (there are 10 questions):

Laboratory 10

1. Why are there many patches of young whitebark pine forests today?

2. What is the definition of "stand-replacing fires" (hint: see p. 295)? What are "mixed-severity fires"?

3. What effect does fire have on landscapes containing whitebark pine?

4. What are "refugia"? What are refugia for whitebark pine trees?

5. Most whitebark pine communities are found within an average of less than ____ kilometers of the nearest neighboring whitebark pine community. What is the greatest know distance of dispersal by nutcrackers?

6. What are the two most important causes of whitebark pine population decline?

7. Should we use a "hands-off" management approach or "restoration ecology" in the case of the whitebark pine? Why?

8. Name two exotic species that have invaded the intermountain ponderosa pine forests?

9. What have you learned about the introduction of exotic species and their impact on native plant/animal populations from this book?

10. Here in Iowa it has been estimated that almost 25% of the plant species are exotic. What should be done about this problem? How would you apply what you have learned in this course to this problem? What are the likely impacts of our load of exotics on our local communities?