Cross-scale interactions among bark beetles, climate change, and wind disturbances: a landscape modeling approach

Bark beetles are a key forest disturbance agent worldwide, with their impact shaped by climate, forest susceptibility, and interactions with other disturbances such as windthrow and fire. There is ample evidence of the interactions among these factors at small spatial and temporal scales, but projecting their long-term and landscape-scale impacts remains a challenge. We developed a spatially explicit model of European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) dynamics that incorporates beetle phenology and forest susceptibility and integrated it in a climate-sensitive landscape model (LandClim). We first corroborated model outputs at various spatial and temporal scales and then applied the model in three case studies (in the Black Forest, Germany, and Davos, Switzerland) that cover an extended climatic gradient. We used this model and case study framework to examine the mechanisms and feedbacks that are driving short-term and long-term interactions among beetle disturbance, climate change, and windthrow, and h...