Alberta wildfires are having some positive impacts on the province\u0027s most destructive pine insect, the mountain pine beetle.
Nadir Erbilgin, a professor of forest health and the department chair of renewable resources in the faculty of agriculture at the University of Alberta, said that in order for wildfires to eliminate pine beetles they have to fully burn the trees that they are infesting.
The mountain pine beetle kills pine trees by producing a blue-stain fungi that clogs and destroys conductive tissue of an affected tree, said the province.The positive news from the wildfires is a good sign, however, Erbilgin said. In some cases wildfires do not always fully burn a tree which means the pine beetle population can still infest them. Partially burned trees still have some form of fresh bark that the beetles are able to get under.
“Some trees are burned and some foliage and root damage, they’re stressed, they’re alive and they may be targeted by mountain pine beetles,” said Erbilgin. Erbilgin said that management activities and the province’s push to get rid of the beetles through burning and tree cutting are a huge contributing factor to the decline of the beetle alongside the colder weather. But he warns that the population will grow if activities aren’t maintained to keep them from repopulating.
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