Whitebark pine is a dominant feature of western high-mountain regions, offering an important source of food and high-quality habitat for species ranging from Clark's nutcracker to the grizzly bear. But in the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada, much of the whitebark pine is disappearing. Why is a high-mountain species found in places rarely disturbed by humans in trouble? And what can be done about it.Whitebark Pine Communities addresses those questions, explaining how a combination of altered fire regimes and fungal infestation is leading to a rapid decline of this once abundant -- and ecologically vital -- species. Leading experts in the field explain what is known about whitebark pine communities and their ecological value, examine its precarious situation, and present the state of knowledge concerning restoration alternatives. The book. presents an overview of the ecology and status of whitebark pine communities offers a basic understanding of whitebark pine taxonomy, distribution, and ecology, including environmental tolerances, community disturbance processes, regeneration processes, species interactions, and genetic population structure identifies the threats to whitebark pine communities explains the need for management intervention surveys the extent of impact and losses to dateMore importantly, the book clearly shows that the knowledge and management tools are available to restore whitebark pine communities both locally and on a significant scale regionally, and it provides specific information about what actions can and must be taken.Whitebark Pine Communities offers a detailed portrait of the ecology of whitebark pine communities and the current threats to them. It brings together leading experts to provide in-depth information on research needs, management approaches, and restoration activities, and will be essential reading for ecologists, land managers, and anyone concerned with the health of forest ecosystems in the western United States.

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) forests are declining across most of their range in North America because of the combined effects of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks, fire exclusion policies, and the exotic pathogen Cronartium ribicola, which infects five-needle white pines and causes the disease white pine blister rust. The loss of this high-elevation tree species poses serious consequences for upper subalpine ecosystems, both in terms of impacts on biodiversity and losses in ecosystem processes; whitebark pine is now a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Large, nutritious seeds produced by whitebark pine are an important food for many bird and small mammal species, as well as grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis) and black bears (Ursus americanus), and whitebark pine communities provide habitat for many additional wildlife species. Whitebark pine seed dispersal by Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) combined with hardy seedlings results in early whitebark pine community development after fire and other disturbances; whitebark pine seedlings survive on harsh, arid sites and may act as nurse trees to less hardy conifers and vegetation. Whitebark pine at higher elevations, where it is common in many regions, helps regulate snow melt and reduce soil erosion. For these collective functions, whitebark pine is considered both a keystone species for promoting community diversity and a foundation species for promoting community stability. Since more than 90 percent of whitebark pine forests exist on public land in the United States and Canada, it is important that government natural resource management agencies play an important role in ensuring future presence of this tree species by initiating concerted, coordinated, and comprehensive restoration efforts. This is best accomplished through a coordinated, trans-boundary restoration strategy that includes shared infrastructure and expertise for conserving seeds, growing blister rust-resistant seedlings, protecting trees, restoring ecosystem processes, and promoting natural regeneration. We detail a multi-scale strategy for restoring whitebark pine across its range in the western United States and Canada. The strategy was compiled by researchers, land managers, and resource specialists for use as a reference for prioritizing, designing, and implementing successful whitebark pine restoration activities across many scales from stands to landscapes to its entire range. The whitebark pine restoration strategy consists of the following principles: (1) promote rust resistance, (2) conserve genetic diversity, (3) save seed sources, and (4) employ restoration treatments. These guiding principles are then used to implement the whitebark pine restoration strategy using a set of possible actions: 1. assess condition, 2. plan activities, 3. reduce pest impacts, 4. gather seed, 5. grow seedlings, 6. protect seed sources, 7. implement restoration treatments, 8. plant burned areas, 9. support research, and 10. monitor activities. The strategy is also organized by six spatial scales of analysis and organization: 1. range-wide, 2. region (National Forest Region or Provincial Regions), 3. forest (National Forest, National Park, and Canadian Forest District), 4. landscape (watershed or landform), 5. stand, and 6. tree. At each scale, we present four important factors in the restoration strategy: (1) assessment, (2) restoration actions, (3) management concerns, and (4) an example. Strategic restoration plans are presented for the coarse-scale strategies, while illustrated examples are presented for the finer scales (tree, stand, and landscape).

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), an important component of western high-elevation forests, has been declining in both the United States and Canada since the early Twentieth Century from the combined effects of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks, fire exclusion policies, and the spread of the exotic disease white pine blister rust (caused by the pathogen Cronartium ribicola). The pine is now a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Within the last decade, with major surges of pine beetle and increasing damage and mortality from blister rust, the cumulative whitebark pine losses have altered high-elevation community composition and ecosystem processes in many regions. Whitebark pine is a keystone species because of its various roles in supporting community diversity and a foundation species for its roles in promoting community development and stability. Since more than 90 percent of whitebark pine forests occur on public lands in the United States and Canada, maintaining whitebark pine communities requires a coordinated and trans-boundary effort across Federal and provincial land management agencies to develop a comprehensive strategy for restoration of this declining ecosystem. We outline a range-wide strategy for maintaining whitebark pine populations in high mountain areas based on the most current knowledge of the efficacy of techniques and differences in their application across communities. The strategy is written as a general guide for planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating fine-scale restoration activities for whitebark pine by public land management agencies, and to encourage agency and inter-agency coordination for greater efficiency. The strategy is organized into six scales of implementation, and each scale is described by assessment factors, restoration techniques, management concerns, and examples.

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) has the largest and most northerly distribution of any white pine (Subgenus Strobus) in North America, encompassing 18° latitude and 21° longitude in western mountains. Within this broad range, however, whitebark pine occurs within a narrow elevational zone, including upper subalpine and treeline forests, and functions generally as an important keystone and foundation species. In the Rocky Mountains, whitebark pine facilitates the development of krummholz conifer communities in the alpine-treeline ecotone (ATE), and thus potentially provides capacity for critical ecosystem services such as snow retention and soil stabilization. The invasive, exotic pathogen Cronartium ribicola, which causes white pine blister rust, now occurs nearly rangewide in whitebark pine communities, to their northern limits. Here, we synthesize data from 10 studies to document geographic variation in structure, conifer species, and understory plants in whitebark pine treeline communities, and examine the potential role of these communities in snow retention and regulating downstream flows. Whitebark pine mortality is predicted to alter treeline community composition, structure, and function. Whitebark pine losses in the ATE may also alter response to climate warming. Efforts to restore whitebark pine have thus far been limited to subalpine communities, particularly through planting seedlings with potential blister rust resistance. We discuss whether restoration strategies might be appropriate for treeline communities.

Wildlife Responses to Climate Change is the culmination of a three-year project to research and study the impacts of global climate change on ecosystems and individual wildlife species in North America. In 1997, the National Wildlife Federation provided fellowships to eight outstanding graduate students to conduct research on global climate change, and engaged leading climate change experts Stephen H. Schneider and Terry L. Root to advise and guide the project. This book presents the results, with chapters describing groundbreaking original research by some of the brightest young scientists in America. The book presents case studies that examine: ways in which local and regional climate variables affect butterfly populations and habitat ranges how variations in ocean temperatures have affected intertidal marine species the potential effect of reduced snow cover on plants in the Rocky Mountains the potential effects of climate change on the distribution of vegetation in the United States how climate change may increase the susceptibility of ecosystems to invasions of non-native species the potential for environmental change to alter interactions between a variety of organisms in whitebark pine communities of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Also included are two introductory chapters by Schneider and Root that discuss the rationale behind the project and offer an overview of climate change and its implications for wildlife. Each of the eight case studies provides important information about how biotic systems respond to climatic variables, and how a changing climate may affect biotic systems in the future. They also acknowledge the inherent complexities of problems likely to arise from changes in climate, and demonstrate the types of scientific questions that need to be explored in order to improve our understanding of how climate change and other human disturbances affect wildlife and ecosystems. Wildlife Responses to Climate Change is an important addition to the body of knowledge critical to scientists, resource managers, and policymakers in understanding and shaping solutions to problems caused by climate change. It provides a useful resource for students and scientists studying the effects of climate change on wildlife and will assist resource managers and other wildlife professionals to better understand factors affecting the species they are striving to conserve.

Scientists have been warning for years that human activity is heating up the planet and climate change is under way. We are only just beginning to acknowledge the serious effects this will have on all life on Earth. The federal government is crafting broad-scale strategies to protect wildland ecosystems from the worst effects of climate change. One of the greatest challenges is to get the latest science into the hands of resource managers entrusted with vulnerable wildland ecosystems. This book examines climate and land-use changes in montane environments, assesses the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to these changes, and provides resource managers with collaborative management approaches to mitigate expected impacts. Climate Change in Wildlands proposes a new kind of collaboration between scientists and managers--a science-derived framework and common-sense approaches for keeping parks and protected areas healthy on a rapidly changing planet.

Some trees and birds are made for each other. Take, for example, the whitebark pine, a timberline tree that graces the moraines and ridgetops of the northern Rockies and the Sierra Nevada-Cascades system. This lovely five-needled pine, long-lived and rugged though it is, cannot reproduce without the help of Clark's nutcracker. And the nutcracker, though it captures insects in the summer and steals a bit of carrion, cannot raise its young in these alpine habitats without feeding them the nutritious seeds of the whitebark pine. Between them, these dwellers of the high mountains provide for each others' posterity, which leads biologists to label their relationship symbiotic, or mutualistic. But there is more to it than that, because in playing out their roles these partners change the landscape. The environment they create provides life's necessities to many other plants and animals. Working in concert, Clark's nutcracker and the whitebark pine build ecosystems. In Made for Each Other: A Symbiosis of Birds and Pines, Ronald M. Lanner details for the first time this fascinating relationship between pine trees and Corvids (nutcrackers and jays), showing how mutualism can drive not only each others' evolution, but affect the ecology of many other members of the surrounding ecosystem as well. Lanner explains that many of the world's pines have seeds not adapted to wind dispersal. Fortunately, their seeds are harvested from the cone and scattered over many miles by seed-eating jays and nutcrackers who bury millions of seeds in the soil as a winter food source. Remarkably, these "pine nut" dependent birds can find their caches even through deep snow. Seeds left in the soil germinate, perpetuating the pines and guarantee future seeds for future birds. Moreover, the newly "planted" whitebark pine groves encourage further tree growth, such as Engelmann spruce, and eventually the patches of open-grown woodland coalesce, forming a continuous forest. Large forest stands offer cover for large animals like bear, elk, and moose, and provide territories for Red Squirrels. These squirrels also depend on pine seeds as a food source, storing large quantities of seeds on the ground, piled up against fallen logs or stumps, or buried in the forest litter. In the fall both black and grizzly bears are preparing to hibernate and must increase their stores of body fat. The seeds of whitebark pine are large and very rich, containing sixty to seventy percent fat, and are an ideal food for this purpose. The large seed reserves created by the squirrels become a feasting ground for these bears. Meanwhile, the sun-loving trees shaded out by the maturing decay offer housing for cavity-nesters like woodpeckers and nuthatches, as well as a breeding ground for fungi which are eagerly devoured by mule deer and red squirrels in search of protein. Eventually, when the forest is ignited in one of the thunderstorms so common and so violent in the high country, an open area is created, attracting nutcrackers in need of a new cache site, and the cycle begins again. Focusing on the Rocky Mountains and the American Southwest, and ranging as far afield as the Alps, Finland, Siberia, and China, this beautifully illustrated and gracefully written work illuminates the phenomenon of co-evolution.