Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

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2013

Academic – Stand recovery and self-organization following large-scale mountain pine beetle induced canopy mortality in northern forests

Mariano Amoroso, David Coates, Rasmus Astrup

Forest Ecology and Management, 310 2013. p. 300-311

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Authors

Mariano Amoroso David Coates Rasmus Astrup

Abstract

A mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic is currently ravaging large areas of interior British Columbia (BC) with significant implications for ecosystem services including future timber supply and community economic stability. Information is needed on future stand dynamics in areas of impacted forests that are unlikely to be salvaged logged. Of greatest concern are stands dominated by lodgepole pine (>50% timber volume). Predicting how surviving trees in these areas respond and grow and the timing and species composition of natural regeneration ingress is of critical importance for multiple forest values. We undertook a retrospective study in the Flathead Valley of southeastern British Columbia where an intense MPB epidemic peaked in 1979–1980. Our objective was to gain insight into stand recovery and stand self-organization as influenced by species-specific growth responses of different sized secondary structure trees (individual seedling, sapling, sub-canopy and canopy trees surviving the epidemic) and post-beetle regeneration dynamics. MPB mortality rates, the percent of basal area killed by beetles, varied from 42% to 100% with most stands between 60% and 80%. In general, all surviving secondary structure released but the extent of growth release exhibited species variability. Release of surviving canopy lodgepole pine trees was often dramatic and greatest in stands with high total stand MPB mortality rates. Ingress of natural regeneration was slow in the first few years after MPB attack but there was a strong pulse of recruitment 10–20 years post disturbance which then slowed considerably. Nearly 30 years after the MPB attack, the stocking and composition of the understories have changed dramatically. Overall, the occurrence of the MPB epidemic resulted in more structurally and compositionally diverse stands leading to multiple successional pathways different from those of even-age pine dominated stands. The recovery and self-organization of unsalvaged natural stands in the Flathead Valley was a complicated process. It has provided insights for future forest management in areas impacted by the current massive MPB epidemic ongoing for the past decade in western North America.

Report – Statement on the applicability of the 2008 VKM report "Combined toxic effects of multiple chemical exposures" after consideration of more recently published reports on risk assessment of combined exposures. Opinion of the Steering Scientific Committee of the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety

Academic – Strong anthropogenic signals in historic forest fire regime: a detailed spatiotemporal case study from south-central Norway

Ken Olaf Storaunet, Jørund Rolstad, Målfrid Toeneiet, ...

Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 43(9) 2013. p. 836-845

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Authors

Ken Olaf Storaunet Jørund Rolstad Målfrid Toeneiet Ylva-li Britta Blanck

Abstract

To better understand the historic range of variability in the fire regime of Fennoscandian boreal forests we cross-dated 736 fire scars of remnant Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) wood samples in a 3.6 km2 section of the Trillemarka-Rollagsfjell Reserve of south-central Norway. Using a kernel range application in GIS we spatially delineated 57 individual forest fires between 1350 and the present. We found a strong anthropogenic signal in the fire regime from 1600 and onwards: (i) infrequent variably sized fires prior to 1600 shifted to frequent fires gradually decreasing in size during the 1600s and 1700s, with only a few small fires after 1800; (ii) time intervals between fires and the hazard of burning showed substantial differences pre- and post-1600; (iii) fire seasonality changed from late- to early-season fires from the 1626 fire and onwards; and (iv) fire severity decreased gradually over time. Written sources corroborated our results, narrating a history where anthropogenic forest fires and slash-and-burn cultivation expanded with the increasing population from the late 1500s. Concurrently, timber resources increased in value, gradually forcing slash-and-burn cultivators to abandon fires on forest land. Our results strengthen and expand previous Fennoscandian findings on the anthropogenic influence of historic fire regimes.

Doctoral dissertation – Studies of Streptomyces species isolated from potatoes in Norway: identification and biology

Merete Dees, May Bente Brurberg, Anne Marte Tronsmo, ...

Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) Thesis, 2013(02) 2013.

Authors

Merete Dees May Bente Brurberg Anne Marte Tronsmo Arild Sletten Arne Hermansen Leslie A Wanner

Abstract

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