Insatiable Bark Beetle story of beetles, global warming

In his new book The Insatiable Bark Beetle, Reese Halter paints a bleak picture for our forests of lodgepole and whitebark pine.

Halter, a conservation biologist and science communicator, explores the link between rising global temperatures and how the beetles have become so capable at devastating entire forests.

Focusing on the science, Halter explains in this book, part of Rocky Mountain Books’ Manifesto series, that rising temperatures, drought and fire suppression have created the perfect conditions for bark beetles over the past 15 years, allowing them to destroy 24 million hectares of forests, dragging all-important trees, such as whitebark pine, towards extinction.

“Their (whitebark pine) life story is intriguing and their value to western North America is priceless. Yet their very existence is perilously close to its end, as raising temperatures have enable their predator – -the mountain pine beetle -– an opportunity to wipe them off the face of the earth,” writes Halter.

Whitebark pine is a long-lived, five-needle pine that grows only at high elevations, including in the Rocky Mountains. As a keystone species, it provides numerous benefits to wildlife, alpine ecosystems and humans, including providing food in the form of its large and nutritious seeds and providing shade, keeping snow and moisture in the high country longer.

This tree also goes needle-and-wing with the Clark’s nutcracker, a raucous member of the crow family that plants the seeds by caching them underground. As a pair, Halter points out that the Clark’s nutcracker and the whitebark pine “build entire ecosystems and feed them”. And yet, because of drought, increased temperatures and beetles, B.C. has seen whitebark pine mortality rise to between 72 and 80 per cent. In the U.S., it’s reached 90 per cent.

Given its importance, if whitebark pine goes down, grizzly bears, which in Alberta are struggling, could follow suit.

“A good supply of whitebark and limber pine seeds can actually determine the fate of bear populations, as without sufficient sustenance the sows will not implant and no new cubs will be born,” Halter writes.

And the whitebark pine is not alone in its importance and in the risks it faces from increased temperatures, drought and beetles. The lodgepole pine, one of the most widespread trees in western North America, is also being affected.

In B.C. alone, mountain pine beetle have killed an estimated 700 million cubic metres of lodgepole pine – at least 15.5 million hectares of forest – since the 1990s.

Lodgepole pines, Halter writes, “Act as massive snow fences that hold winter snowfall and release the spring melt water slowly. Their efforts help to feed streams, rivers and watersheds. In turn, they are essential for drinking water and agricultural irrigation for over 50 million residents across the West.”

However, Halter writes, a century of preventing forest fires to ensure timber maintained its commercial value has given mountain pine beetles, which he describes as “one of nature’s formidable agents of change” the opportunity to benefit from rising temperatures, allowing beetles to both expand their range and reach their highest historic numbers.

“The beetles’ benefit is our loss, as we must now contend with the devastation of vital forest ecosystems in the aftermath of the ravenous beetle attacks.”

As someone who regularly shares science with a wide audience, including children, Halter does an excellent job in this 161-page-book of explaining how a rise in temperatures, even one degree, has the capacity to wreak havoc on every ecosystem on the planet, and in this case, how it has opened the door for bark beetles to become overachievers.

We have just gone through the warmest decade since the 1880s, when first records first began, and in the past 130 years the temperature has increased 0.8 C. It is expected to continue to climb to at least 1 C. But that is the low end of the scale. It could climb as high as 2-4 C by 2100.

Through The Insatiable Bark Beetle, Halter reminds us that it is not so much a problem with bark beetles; it is really a problem with climate change and how greenhouse gases and other human-related environmental effects are changing the world.

Bark beetles are a symptom of a much greater problem, but in the war against these rice-sized beetles, that often gets lost and it becomes more about the war on beetles than what we have done to alter and damage our ecosystems.

“For the first time in the history of our species, we are deliberately altering the destiny of humankind and life as we know it on the planet,” Halter writes.

But all is not lost. We still have time to turn that around.

He also provides a list of what we as an individuals can do to make a difference, such as reducing how much power, water and fuel we use. Even simple things, such as checking tire pressure, riding a bike or taking transit, compost, use a ‘smart’ power bar for electronic devices to ensure computers and TVs are not drawing phantom power, can make a difference and as he writes, “lend a helping hand and respect and protect our planet – the only home we have”.

The Insatiable Bark Beetle, published by Rocky Mountain Books, is available for $16.95.