Individual-Based Modeling: Mountain Pine Beetle Seasonal Biology in Response to Climate

Over the past decades, as significant advances were made in the availability and accessibility of computing power, individual-based models (IBM) have become increasingly appealing to ecologists (Grimm 1999). The individual-based modeling approachprovides a convenient framework to incorporate detailed knowledge of individuals and of their interactions within populations (Lomnicki 1999). Variability among individuals is essential to the success of populations that are exposed to changing environments, and because natural selection acts on this variability, it is an essential component of population performance. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

An Individual Based Model of Mountain Pine Beetle Responses to Climate and Host Resistance

We have developed a model describing the responses of mountain pine beetle to daily fluctuations of temperature, in terms of development, survival and reproduction. The model also describes the aggregation, attack, and competition of beetles in pine stands. Built in an individual based framework, using an object-oriented approach, this model can predict the response of beetle populations to climatic conditions and host plant resistance and distribution, at the stand level. We are using this model to better understand the interaction between climate and host plant resistance that determine population growth rates in various environments. We will focus on the contrasting population performance of MPB on whitebark pine compared to lodgepole pine

Changes in the distribution of multispecies pest assemblages affect levels of crop damage in warming tropical Andes

Climate induced species range shifts might create novel interactions among species that may outweigh direct climatic effects. In an agricultural context, climate change might alter the intensity of competition or facilitation interactions among pests with, potentially, negative consequences on the levels of damage to crop. This could threaten the productivity of agricultural systems and have negative impacts on food security, but has yet been poorly considered in studies. In this contribution, we constructed and evaluated process-based species distribution models for three invasive potato pests in the Tropical Andean Region. These three species have been found to co-occur and interact within the same potato tuber, causing different levels of damage to crop. Our models allowed us to predict the current and future distribution of the species and therefore, to assess how damage to crop might change in the future due to novel interactions. In general, our study revealed the main challenges related to distribution modeling of invasive pests in highly heterogeneous regions. It yielded different results for the three species, both in terms of accuracy and distribution, with one species surviving best at lower altitudes and the other two performing better at higher altitudes. As to future distributions our results suggested that the three species will show different responses to climate change, with one of them expanding to higher altitudes, another contracting its range and the other shifting its distribution to higher altitudes. These changes will result in novel areas of co-occurrence and hence, interactions of the pests, which will cause different levels of damage to crop. Combining population dynamics and species distribution models that incorporate interspecific trade-off relationships in different environments revealed a powerful approach to provide predictions about the response of an assemblage of interacting species to future environmental changes and their impact on process rates

Biophysical site indices for shade tolerant and intolerant boreal species

Two variants of a biophysical site index model were derived for two shade-tolerant boreal species (Abies balsamea [L.] Mill., andPicea mariana [Mill.] BSP), and two shade-intolerant boreal species (Populus tremuloides Michx., and Betula papyrifera Marsh.). The reduced model is based on the widely used assumption that the relationship between height and age of dominant trees depends solely on site properties: i.e., four climatic variables (degree-days, vapor pressure deficit, aridity index, and precipitation), and one edaphic variable (soil water-holding capacity). The full model is based on the further assumption that site index also depends on the stand successional stage represented by the dbh distribution index. The reduced model is accurate and unbiased for both intolerant species, but it becomes inaccurate and underestimates the mature stand dominant height for both tolerant species. The full model is equivalent to the reduced model for both intolerant species, but becomes two or three times more accurate and unbiased for both tolerant species. When incorporated into a growth and yield model as the site quality index, the reduced model performs as well as the traditional phytometric model (derived solely from an empirical fit of dominant height and age without any biophysical data) for both intolerant species, but it becomes biased for both tolerant species. By contrast, the full model, when used as a site quality index in the growth and yield model, is unbiased and equivalent to the phytometric model for the four species. These results show that the site index of intolerant species can be solely associated with climatic and edaphic variables, but these variables have to be completed by the successional stage for correctly estimating the site index of the tolerant species. FOR. Sci. 47(1):83–95