Effects of Mountain Pine Beetle Attack on hydrology and post-attack vegetation and hydrology recovery in lodgepole pine forests in Alberta

This project will describe how mountain pine beetle attack drives changes in hydrology and vegetation. The project will provide necessary data for moutnain pine beetle decision support tools. This is phase one of the project, examining the effects during the red attack stage, immediately after MPB attack.

This project will continue monitoring vegetation and water on plots established in a previous 2008 project.  This is a continuation of the data collection to add to the reports and models created under the original project.  We will conduct site monitoring for the 2011–13 growing season to capture important meterorological variables durring the transition between the present red-green attack and grey attack.  This would include continued monitoring of:

• crown condition (crown dondition survey consisting of fixed-point prism sweeps with qualitative categorization of crown condition, and re-photography of the hemispherical photo grid/transects) 
• canopy and understory meterological variables including crown light transmission
• soil moisture
• ground water response 

This steeped-down site monitoring could continue into 2013 should the needle cast in late 2012 be insuffiecient to fully represent a fully expresed grey attack condition.

This monitoring will enable a description of how these important environmental conditions will likey drive larger changes in site hydrology and vegetation ecology as they undergo changes during the transition. 

We envision the possiblity of a more concerted research effort describing both stand hydrology and vegetation ecology at this site (similar to the research conducted durring the first two post-treatment years) once needle cast and grey attack conditions at this site are fully expressed.